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BY   REEF 
AND  PALM 

BY    LOUIS    BECKE 


WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION 

BY    THE    EARL    OF 

PEMBROKE 


J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 
PHILADELPHIA    MDCCCXCV 


Printed  By  J.  B.  LrppiNCOTT  Company, 
Philadelphia,  u.8  A. 


Introduction. 


Apia, 
place, 


HEN  in  October, 
1870,  I  sailed  into 
the  harbour  of  Apia, 
Samoa,  in  the  ill- 
fated  Albatross^  Mr. 
Louis  Beclce  was 
gaining  his  first  ex- 
periences of  island 
life  as  a  trader  on 
his  own  account  by 
running  a  cutter 
between  Apia  and 
Savaii. 

It    v/as    rather   a 
notable   moment  in 
for  two  reasons.     In  the  first 
the    German    traders    were 


us  SiElS 


INTRODUCTION. 


shaking  in  their  shoes  for  fear  of 
what  the  French  squadron  might 
do  to  them,  and  we  were  the 
bearers  of  the  good  news  frorri 
Tahiti  that  the  chivalrous  Admiral 
Clouet,  with  a  very  proper  mag- 
nanimity, had  decided  not  to  molest 
them  ;  and,  secondly,  the  beach 
was  still  seething  with  excitement 
over  the  departure  on  the  previous 
day  of  the  pirate  Pease,  carrying 
with  him  the  yet  more  illustrious 
"  Bully  "  Hayes. 

It  happened  in  this  wise.  A 
month  or  two  before  our  arrival, 
Hayes  had  dropped  anchor  in  Apia, 
and  some  ugly  stories  of  recent 
irregularities  in  the  labour  trade 
had  come  to  the  ears  of  Mr. 
Williams,  the  English  consul. 
Mr.  Williams,  with  the  assistance 
of  the  natives,  very  cleverly  seized 
his  vessel  in  the  night,  and  ran  her 
ashore,  and  detained  Mr.  Hayes 
pending  the  arrival  of  an  English 
man-of-war  to  which  he  could  be 
given  in  charge.  But  in  those 
happy  days  there  were  no  prisons 
in  Samoa,  so  that  his  confinement 


INTRODUCTION. 


was  not  irksome,  and  his  only  hard 
labour  was  picnics,  of  which  he 
was  the  Hfe  and  soul.  All  went 
pleasantly  until  Mr.  Pease — a  de- 
generate sort  of  pirate  who  made 
his  living  by  half  bullying,  half 
swindling  lonely  white  men  on 
small  islands  out  of  their  cocoanut 
oil,  and  unarmed  merchantmen  out 
of  their  stores — came  to  Apia  in  an 
armed  ship  with  a  Pvlalay  crew. 
From  that  moment  Hayes's  life 
became  less  idyllic.  Hayes  and 
Pease  conceived  a  most  violent 
hatred  of  each  other,  and  poor  old 
Mr.  Williams  was  really  worried 
into  an  attack  of  elephantiasis 
(which  answers  to  the  gout  in 
those  latitudes)  by  his  continual 
efforts  to  prevent  the  two  despera- 
does from  flying  at  each  other's 
throat.  Heartily  glad  was  he 
when  Pease — who  was  the  sort  of 
man  that  always  observed  les 
convenances  when  possible,  and 
who  fired  a  salute  of  twenty-one 
guns  on  the  Queen's  birthday — 
came  one  afternoon  to  get  his 
papers  "  all  regular,"  and  clear  for 


INTRODUCTION. 


sea.  But  lo  !  the  next  morning, 
when  his  vessel  had  disappeared,  it 
was  found  that  his  enemy  Captain 
Hayes  had  disappeared  also,  and  the 
ladies  of  Samoa  were  left  discon- 
solate at  the  departure  of  the  most 
agreeable  man  they  had  ever  known. 
However,  all  this  is  another 
story,  as  Mr.  Kipling  says,  and  one 
which  I  hope  Mr.  Becke  will  tell 
us  more  fully  some  day,  for  he 
knew  Hayes  well,  having  acted  as 
supercargo  on  board  his  ship,  and 
shared  a  shipwreck  and  other  ad- 
ventures with  him. 

But  even  before  this  date  Mr. 
Becke  had  had  as  much  experience 
as  falls  to  most  men  of  adventures 
in  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

Born  at  Port  Macquarrie  in 
Australia,  where  his  father  was 
clerk  of  petty  sessions,  he  was 
seized  at  the  age  of  fourteen  with 
an  intense  longing  to  go  to  sea. 
It  is  possible  that  he  inherited  this 
passion  through  his  mother,  for  her 
father,  Charles  Beilby,  who  was 
private  secretary  to  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland,  invested  a  legacy  that 


INTRODUCTION. 

fell  to  him  in  a  small  vessel  and 
sailed  with  his  family  to  the  then 
very  new  world  of  Australia.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  it  was  impossible 
to  keep  Louis  Becke  at  home;  and, 
as  an  alternative,  an  uncle  under- 
took to  send  him,  and  a  brother 
two  years  older,  to  a  mercantile 
house  in  California.  His  first 
voyage  was  a  terrible  one.  There 
were  no  steamers,  of  course,  in 
those  days,  and  they  sailed  for  San 
Francisco  in  a  wretched  old  barque. 
For  over  a  month  they  were  drift- 
ing about  the  stormy  sea  between 
Australia  and  New  Zealand  a 
partially  dismasted  and  leaking 
wreck.  The  crew  mutinied — they 
had  bitter  cause  to — and  only  after 
calling  at  Rurutu  in  the  Tubuai 
Group  and  obtaining  fresh  food  did 
they  permit  the  captain  to  resume 
command  of  the  half-sunken  old 
craft.  They  were  ninety  days  in 
reaching  Honolulu,  and  another 
forty  in  making  the  Californian 
coast. 

The  two  lads  did   not   find   the 
routine  of  a  merchant's  office  at  all 


INTRODUCTION. 


to  their  taste  ;  and  while  the  elder 
obtained  employment  on  a  cattle 
ranche,  Louis,  still  faithful  to  the. 
sea,  got  a  berth  as  clerk  in  a  steam- 
ship company,  and  traded  to  the 
Southern  ports.  In  a  year's  time 
he  had  money  enough  to  take 
passage  in  a  schooner  bound  on  a 
shark-catching  cruise  to  Christmas 
and  Palmyra  Islands  in  the  North 
Pacific.  The  life  was  a  very  rough 
one,  and  full  of  incident  and  adven- 
ture— which  I  hope  he  will  relate 
some  day.  Returning  to  Honolulu, 
he  fell  in  with  an  old  man  who  had 
bought  a  schooner  for  a  trading 
venture  amongst  the  Western  Caro- 
lines. Becke  put  in  $i,ooo,  and 
sailed  with  him  as  supercargo,  he 
and  the  skipper  being  the  only 
white  men  on  board.  He  soon 
discovered  that,  though  a  good  sea- 
man, the  old  man  knew  nothing  of 
navigation.  In  a  few  weeks  they 
were  among  the  Marshall  Islands, 
and  the  captain  went  mad  from 
delirium  tremens.  Becke  and  the 
three  native  sailors  ran  the  vessel  into 
a  little  uninhabited  atoll,  and  for  a 


lo 


INTRODUCTION. 


week  had  to  keep  the  captain  tied 
up  to  prevent  his  kilHng  himself. 
They  got  him  right  at  last  and 
stood  to  the  westward.  On  their 
voyage  they  were  witnesses  of  a 
tragedy  (in  this  instance  fortunately 
not  complete),  on  which  the  pitiless 
sun  of  the  Pacific  has  looked  down 
very  often.  They  fell  in  with  a 
big  Marshall  Island  sailing  canoe 
that  had  been  blown  out  of  sight  of 
land,  and  had  drifted  six  hundred 
miles  to  the  westward.  Out  of 
her  complement  of  seventy  people, 
thirty  were  dead.  They  gave  them 
provisions  and  water,  and  left  them 
to  make  Strong's  Island  (Kusaie), 
which  was  in  sight.  Becke  and 
the  chief  swore  Marshall  Island 
^rK^^^r^rZ*^  with  each  other.  Years 
afterwards,  when  he  came  to  live 
in  the  group,  the  chief  proved  his 
friendship  in  a  signal  manner. 

The  cruise  proved  a  profitable 
one,  and  from  that  time  Mr.  Becke 
determined  to  become  a  trader  and 
to  learn  to  know  the  people  of 
every  group  of  the  Pacific ;  and 
returning   to    California,   he    made 


TI 


INTRODUCTION. 


for  Samoa,  and  from  thence  to 
Sydney.  But  at  this  time  the 
Palmer  River  gold  rush  had  just 
broken  out  in  North  Queensland, 
and  a  brother  who  was  a  bank 
manager  on  the  celebrated  Charters 
Towers  goldfields,  invited  him  to 
come  up,  as  every  one  seemed  to  be 
making  his  fortune.  He  wandered 
between  the  rushes  for  two  years, 
not  making  a  fortune,  but  acquiring 
much  useful  experience,  learning 
amongst  other  things  the  art  of  a 
blacksmith,  and  becoming  a  crack 
shot  with  a  rifle.  Returning  to 
Sydney,  he  sailed  for  the  Friendly 
Islands  (Tonga)  in  company  with 
the  king  of  Tonga's  yacht — the 
Taufaahau.  The  Friendly  Islanders 
disappointed  him  (at  which  no  one 
that  knows  them  will  wonder),  and 
he  went  on  to  Samoa,  and  set  up  as 
a  trader  on  his  own  account  for  the 
first  time.  He  and  a  Manhiki 
half-caste  bought  a  cutter,  and  went 
into  partnership,  trading  throughout 
the  group.  This  was  the  time  of 
Colonel  Steinbcrger's  brief  tenure 
of  power.   The  natives  were  fighting 


12 


INTRODUCTION. 

and  the  cutter  was  seized  on  two 
occasions.  When  the  war  was  over 
he  made  a  study  of  the  language, 
and  became  a  great  favourite  with 
the  natives,  as  indeed  seems  to  have 
been  the  case  in  most  of  the  places 
he  went  to  in  Polynesia  and  Mi- 
cronesia. From  Samoa  he  was  sent 
away  in  charge  of  a  trading  vessel 
under  sealed  orders  to  the  Marshall 
Islands.  These  orders  turned  out 
to  be  to  hand  the  vessel  over  to  the 
notorious  Captain  "Bully"  Hayes. 
(Some  day  he  promises  that  he  will 
give  us  the  details  of  this  very 
curious  adventure.)  He  found 
Hayes  awaiting  him  in  his  famous 
brig  Leonora  in  Mi  Hi  Lagoon.  He 
handed  over  his  charge  and  took 
passage  with  him  in  the  brig. 
After  some  months  cruising  in  the 
Carolines  they  were  wrecked  on 
Strong's  Island  (Kusaie).  Hayes 
made  himself  the  ruler  of  the  island, 
and  Mr.  Becke  and  he  had  a  bitter 
quarrel.  The  natives  treated  the 
latter  with  great  kindness,  built 
him  a  house,  and  gave  him  land  on 
the  lee  side  of  the  island,  where  he 


13 


INTRODUCTION. 

lived  happily  enough  for  five  months. 
Hayes  was  captured  by  an  English 
man-of-w^ar,  but  escaped  and  went 
to  Guam.  Mr.  Becke  went  back' 
in  the  cruiser  to  the  Colonies,  and 
then  again  sailed  for  Eastern  Poly- 
nesia, living  in  the  Gamblers, 
Paumotus,  and  Easter  and  Pitcairn 
Islands.  In  this  part  of  the  ocean 
he  picked  up  an  abandoned  French 
barque  on  a  reef,  floated  her,  and 
loaded  her  with  cocoanuts,  intending 
to  sail  her  to  New  Zealand  with  a 
native  crew,  but  tliey  went  ashore 
in  a  hurricane  and  lost  everything. 
Meeting  with  the  managing  partner 
of  a  Liverpool  firm  he  took  service 
with  them  as  a  trader  in  the  Ellice 
and  Tokelau  groups  ;  finally  settling 
down  as  a  residential  trader.  Then 
he  took  passage  once  more  for  the 
Carolines  and  was  wrecked  on  Peru, 
one  of  the  savage  Gilbert  islands 
(lately  annexed),  losing  every  dollar 
that  he  possessed.  He  returned  to 
Samoa  and  engaged  as  "recruiter" 
in  the  labour  trade.  He  got  badly 
hurt  in  an  encounter  with  some 
natives  and  went  to  New  Zealand 


H 


INTRODUCTION. 


to  recover.  Then  he  sailed  to  New 
Britain  on  a  trading  venture,  and 
fell  in  vv^ith  and  had  much  to  do 
with  the  ill-fated  colonising  expe- 
dition of  the  Marquis  de  Rayo  in 
New  Ireland.  A  bad  attack  of 
malarial  fever,  and  a  wound  in  the 
neck  (labour  recruiting  or  even 
trading  among  the  blacks  of  Mela- 
nesia seems  to  have  been  a  much 
less  pleasant  business  than  residence 
among  the  gentle  brown  folk  of  the 
Eastern  Pacific)  made  him  leave 
and  return  to  the  Marshall  Islands, 
where  Lailik,  the  chief  whom  he 
had  succoured  at  sea  years  before, 
made  him  welcom.e.  He  left  on 
a  fruitless  quest  after  an  imaginary 
guano  island,  and  from  then  until 
two  years  ago  he  has  been  living  on 
various  islands  in  both  the  North 
and  South  Pacific,  leading  what  he 
calls  "a  wandering  and  lonely  but 
not  unhappy  existence,"  "  Lui," 
as  they  call  him,  being  a  man  both 
liked  and  trusted  by  the  natives 
from  lonely  Easter  Island  to  the 
far-away  Pellews.  During  one  of 
his  visits  to  the  Colonies  he  married 


15 


INTRODUCTION. 


a  young  Irish  lady,  a  daughter  of 
Colonel  Maunsell  of  H.M.  nth 
Regiment,  by  whom  he  has  two 
children.  For  the  last  two  years 
he  has  been  living  in  Australia  and 
contributing  South  Sea  stories  to 
the  Colonial  papers.  He  is  still  in 
the  prime  of  life,  and  whether  he 
will  now  remain  within  the  bounds 
of  civilisation,  or  whether  some  day 
he  will  return  to  his  wanderings  as 
Odysseus  is  fabled  to  have  done  in 
his  old  age,  I  fancy  that  he  hardly 
knows  himself.  But  when  once 
the  charm  of  a  wild  roving  life  has 
got  into  a  man's  blood,  the  trammells 
of  civilisation  are  irksome  and  its 
atmosphere  is  hard  to  breathe. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  all-too- 
condensed  sketch  of  Mr.  Becke's 
career  that  he  knows  the  Pacific 
as  few  men  alive  or  dead  have  ever 
known  it.  He  is  one  of  the  rare 
men  who  have  led  a  very  wild  life 
and  have  the  culture  and  talent 
necessary  to  give  some  account  of 
it.  As  a  rule,  the  men  who  know 
don't  wtrie,  and  the  men  who  write 
don't  know. 


i6 


INTRODUCTION. 


Every  one  who   has   a  taste  for 
good  stories  will  feel,  I  believe,  the 
force   of  these.      Every   one    who 
knows  the  South  Seas,  and  I  believe 
many  who    do    not,  will  feel   that 
they  have  the  unmistakable  stamp 
of  truth.     And  truth  to  nature  is 
— pace  Mr.  Oscar  Wilde — a  great 
merit  in  a  story,  not  only  because 
of  that  thrill  of  pleasure  hard    to 
analyse,    but    largely    made    up   of 
associations,  memories,  and  sugges- 
tions, that  faithfulness  of  represen- 
tation in  picture  or  book  gives  to 
the  natural  man  ;  but  because  of  the 
fact  that  nature  is  almost  infinitely 
rich  and  the  unassisted  imagination 
of  man  but  a  poor  and  sterile  thing, 
tending    constantly    towards    some 
ossified    convention.       "  Treasure 
Island  "  is  a  much  better  story  than 
*'  The  Wreckers,"  yet   I,  for  one, 
shall  never  cease  to  regret  that  Mr. 
Stevenson    did    not    possess,    when 
he  wrote  "  Treasure   Island,"  that 
knowledge     of     what     men     and 
schooners    do     in    wild    seas    that 
was    his   when   he  gave   us   "  The 
Wreckers."    The  detail  would  have 


VJ 


INTRODUCTION. 

been    so    much    richer    and    more 
convincing. 

It  is  open  to  any  one  to  say  that 
these  tales  are  barbarous,  and  what 
Mrs.  Meynell,  in  a  very  clever  and 
amusing  essay,  has  called  "  de- 
civilised."  Certainly  there  is  a 
wide  gulf  separating  life  on  a 
Pacific  island  from  the  accumulated 
culture  of  centuries  of  civilisation 
in  the  midst  of  which  such  as  Mrs. 
Meynell  move  and  have  their  being. 
And  if  there  can  be  nothing  good 
in  literature  that  does  not  spring 
from  that  culture,  these  stories  must 
stand  condemned.  But  such  a  view 
is  surely  too  narrow.  Much  as  I 
admire  that  lady's  writings,  I  never 
can  think  of  a  world  from  which 
everything  was  eliminated  that  did 
not  commend  itself  to  the  dainty 
taste  of  herself  and  her  friends 
without  a  feeling  of  impatience  and 
suffocation.  It  takes  a  huge  variety 
of  men  and  things  to  make  a  good 
world.  And  ranches  and  canons, 
veldts  and  prairies,  tropical  forests 
and  coral  islands,  and  all  that  goes 
to  make  up  the  wild  life  in  the  face 


i8 


INTRODUCTION. 

of  nature  or  among  primitive  races, 
far  and  free  from  the  artificial  con- 
ditions of  an  elaborate  civilisation, 
form  an  element  in  the  world  the 
loss  of  which  would  be  bitterly  felt 
by  many  a  man  who  has  never  set 
foot  outside  his  native  land. 

There  is  a  certain  monotony 
perhaps  about  these  stories.  To 
some  extent  this  is  inevitable.  The 
interests  and  passions  of  South  Sea 
Island  life  are  neither  numerous  nor 
complex,  and  action  is  apt  to  be 
rapid  and  direct.  A  novelist  of 
that  modern  school  that  fills  its 
volumes,  often  fascinatingly  enough, 
by  refining  upon  the  shadowy  re- 
finements of  civilised  thought  and 
feeling,  would  find  it  hard  to  ply 
his  trade  in  South  Sea  Island  society. 
His  models  would  always  be  cutting 
short  in  five  minutes  the  hesitations 
and  subtleties  that  ought  to  have 
lasted  them  through  a  quarter  of  a 
lifetime.  But  I  think  it  is  possible 
that  the  English  reader  might  gather 
from  this  little  book  an  unduly 
strong  impression  of  the  uniformity 
of  Island  life.     The  loves  of  white 


T9 


INTRODUCTION, 

men  and  brown  women,  often 
cynical  and  brutal,  sometimes  ex- 
quisitely tender  and  pathetic,  neces- 
sarily fill  a  large  space  in  any  true 
picture  of  the  South  Sea  Islands, 
and  Mr.  Becice,  no  doubt  of  set 
artistic  purpose,  has  confined  him- 
self in  the  collection  of  tales  now 
offered  almost  entirely  to  this  facet 
of  the  life.  I  do  not  question  that 
he  is  right  in  deciding  to  detract 
nothing  from  the  striking  effect  of 
these  powerful  stories,  taken  as  a 
whole,  by  interspersing  amongst 
them  others  of  a  different  character. 
But  I  hope  it  may  be  remembered 
that  the  present  selection  is  only 
an  instalment,  and  that  if  it  finds 
favour  with  the  British  public  we 
may  expect  from  him  some  of  those 
tales  of  adventure,  and  of  purely 
native  life  and  custom,  which  no 
one  could  tell  so  well  as  he. 

June,  1894.  PEMBROKE. 


20 


Challis  the  Doubter. 


THE      WHITE      LADY      AND      THE      BROWN 
WOMAN. 

OUR  years  had  come  and 
gone  since  the  day  that 
Challis,  with  a  dull  and 
savage  misery  in  hisheart, 
had,    cursing    the    love- 
madness  which  once 
possessed  him,  walked  out 
from     his     house    in     an 
Australian   city   with   an 
undefined  and  vague  pur- 
pose    of    going     "  some- 
where"    to    drown      his 
x^sT'j.:^      ^"  sense  of  wrong  and  erase 
^1^^?^  from  his  memory  the  face 
@?I1^P       of   the  woman  who,  his 
^^p?       wife  of  not  yet  a  year, 
^^  had     played     with     her 

honour  and  his.     So  he  thought,  any- 
how. 


21 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

You  see,  Challis  was  "a  fool" — at 
least  so  his  pretty,  violet-eyed  wife 
had  told  him  that  afternoon  with  a 
bitter  and  contemptuous  ring  in  her 
voice  when  he  had  brought  another 
man's  letter — written  to  her — and 
with  impulsive  and  jealous  haste  had 
asked  her  to  explain.  He  was  a  fool, 
she  had  said,  with  an  angry  gleam  in 
the  violet  eyes,  to  think  she  could  not 
"take  care"  of  herself.  Admit  re- 
ceiving that  letter?  Of  course  !  Did 
he  think  she  could  help  other  men 
writing  silly  letters  to  her  ?  Did  he 
not  think  she  could  keep  out  of  a 
mess  ?  And  she  smiled  the  self- 
satisfied  smile  of  a  woman  conscious 
of  many  admirers  and  of  her  own 
powers  of  intrigue. 

Then  Challis,  with  a  big  effort, 
gulping  down  the  rage  that  stirred 
him,  made  his  great  mistake.  He 
spoke  of  his  love  for  her.  Fatuity  ! 
She  laughed  at  him,  said  that  as  she 
detested  women,  his  love  was  too 
exacting  for  her  if  it  meant  that  she 
should  never  be  commonly  friendly 
with  any  other  man, 

Challis  looked  at  her  steadily  for  a 
few  moments,  trying  to  smother  the 


22 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 


wild  flood  of  black  suspicion  aroused 
in  him  by  the  discovery  of  the  letter 
and  confirmed  by  her  sneering  words, 
and  then  said  quietly  but  with  a 
dangerous  inflexion  in  his  voice — 

"Remember — you  are  my  wife. 
If  you  have  no  regard  for  your  own 
reputation,  you  shall  have  some  for 
mine.     I  don't  want  to  entertain  my 

friends  by  thrashing  R ,  but  I'm 

not  such  a  fool  as  you  think.  And  if 
you  go  further  in  this  direction  you'll 
find  me  a  bit  of  a  brute." 

Again  the  sneering  laugh — "  In- 
deed !  Something  very  tragic  will 
occur,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"No,"  said  Challis,  grimly,  "some- 
thing very  prosaic — common  enough 
among  men  with  pretty  wives — I'll 
clear  out." 

"  I  wish  you  would  do  that  now," 
said  his  wife,  "I  hate  you  quite 
enough." 

Of  course  she  didn't  quite  mean  it. 
She  really  liked  Challis  in  her  own 
small-souled  way — principally  because 
his  money  had  given  her  the  social 
pleasures  denied  her  during  her  girl- 
hood. With  an  unmoved  face  and 
without  farewell  he  left  her  and  went 
to  his  lawyer's. 


23 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later  he  arose 
to  go,  and  the  lawyer  asked  him  when 
he  intended  returning. 

"That  all  depends  upon  her.  If 
she  wants  me  back  again,  she  can 
write,  through  you,  and  I'll  come — if 
she  has  conducted  herself  with  a 
reasonable  amount  of  propriety  for 
such  a  pretty  woman." 

Then,  with  an  ugly  look  on  his 
face,  Challis  went  out ;  next  day  he 
embarked  in  the  Lady  Alicia  for  a  six 
months'  cruise  among  the  islands  of 
the  North-west  Pacific. 

That  was  four  years  ago,  and  to-day 
Challis,  who  stands  working  at  a  little 
table  set  in  against  an  open  window, 
hammering  out  a  ring  from  a  silver 
coin  on  a  marlinspike  and  vyce, 
whistles  softly  and  contentedly  to 
himself  as  he  raises  his  head  and 
glances  through  the  vista  of  cocoanuts 
that  surround  his  dwelling  on  this 
lonely  and  almost  forgotten  island. 

"  The  devil  !  "  he  thinks  to  him- 
self, "I  must  be  turning  into  a  native. 
Four  years  !  What  an  ass  I  was  ! 
And  I've  never  written  yet — that  is, 
never  sent  a  letter  away.  Well,  neither 
has  she.     Perhaps,  after  all,  there  was 


24 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 


little  in   that  affair  of  R- 


By  God  !  though,  if  there  was,  I've 
been  very  good  to  them  in  leaving 
them  a  clear  field.  Anyhow,  she's  all 
right  as  regards  money.  I'm  glad  I've 
done  that.  It's  a  big  prop  to  a  man's 
conscience  to  feel  he  hasn't  done  any- 
thing mean  ;  and  she  likes  money — 
most  women  do.  Of  course  I'll  go 
back — if  she  writes.  If  not — well, 
then,  these  sinful  islands  can  claim 
me  for  their  own ;  that  is,  Nalia 
can." 

A  native  boy  with  shaven  head,  save 
for  a  long  tuft  on  the  left  side,  came 
down  from  the  village,  and,  seating 
himself  on  the  gravelled  space  inside 
the  fence,  gazed  at  the  white  man 
with  full,  lustrous  eyes. 

"Hallo,  tama!"  said  Challis, 
"  whither  goest  now  ?  " 

"  Pardon,  Tialli.  I  came  to  look 
at  thee  making  the  ring.  Is  it  of  soft 
silver — and  for  Nalia,  thy  wife  ?  " 

"Ay,  O  Shaven  Head,  it  is.  Here, 
take  this  masi  and  go  pluck  me  a 
young  nut  to  drink,"  and  Challis 
threw  him  a  ship-biscuit.  Then  he 
went  on  tapping  the  little  band  of 
silver.     He  had  already  forgotten  the 


2S 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

violet  eyes,  and  was  thinking  with 
almost  childish  eagerness  of  the  soft 
glow  in  the  black  orbs  of  Nalia  when 
she  should  see  his  finished  handiwork. 

The  boy  returned  with  a  young 
cocoanut,  unhusked.  "Behold,  Tialli. 
This  nut  is  a  uto  gdau,  sweet  husk. 
When  thou  hast  drunk  the  juice  give 
it  me  back,  that  I  may  chew  the  husk 
which  is  sweet  as  the  sugar-cane  of 
Samoa,"  and  he  squatted  down  again 
on  the  gravel. 

•  *  •  • 

Challis  drank,  then  threw  him  the 
husk  and  resumed  his  work.  Presently 
the  boy,  tearing  off  a  strip  of  the 
husk  with  his  white  teeth,  said, 
"Tialli,  how  is  it  that  there  be  no 
drinking-nuts  in  thy  house  ?" 

"  Because,  O  turtle-head,  my  wife 
is  away ;  and  there  are  no  men  in  the 
village  to-day  ;  and  because  the  women 
of  this  motu  '  have  no  thought  that 
the  papalagi^  may  be  parched  with 
thirst,  and  so  come  not  near  me  with 
a  cocoanut."     This  latter  in  jest. 

"Nay,  Tialli.  Not  so.  True  it 
is  that  to-day  all  the  men  are  in  the 
bush  binding  fala  leaves  around  the 
cocoanut  trees,  else  do  the  rats  steal 

*  Island  or  country.  "  Foreigner. 


26 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

up  and  eat  the  buds  and  clusters  of 
little  nuts.  And  because  Nalia,  thy 
wife,  is  away  at  the  other  White  Man's 
house  no  woman  cometh  inside  the 
door." 

Challis  laughed.  "  O  evil-minded 
people  of  Nukunono  !  And  must  I, 
thy  pnpalagi,  be  parched  with  thirst 
because  of  this  ?  " 

"  Faiaga  oe^  Tialli,  thou  but  playest 
with  me.  Raise  thy  hand  and  call 
out '  I  thirst  ! '  and  every  woman  in  the 
village  will  run  to  thee,  each  with  a 
drinking-nut,  and  those  that  desire 
thee,  but  are  afraid,  will  give  two. 
But  to  come  inside  when  Nalia  is 
away  would  be  to  put  shame  on  her." 


The  white  man  mused.  The  boy's 
solemn  chatter  entertained  him.  He 
knew  well  the  native  customs  ;  but, 
to  torment  the  boy,  he  commenced 
again. 

"  O,  foolish  custom  !  See  how  I 
trust  my  wife  Nalia.  Is  she  not  even 
now  in  the  house  of  another  white 
man  ?  " 

"True.  But,  then,  he  is  old  and 
feeble,  and  thou  young  and  strong. 
None  but  a  fool  desires  to  eat  a  dried 


27 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

flying-fish  when  a  fresh  one  may  be 
had." 

"  O,  wise  man  with  the  shaven 
crown,''  said  Challis,  with  mocking 
good  nature,  "thou  art  full  of  wisdom 
of  the  ways  of  women.  And  if  I  were 
old  and  withered,  would  Nalia  then 
be  false  to  me  in  the  house  of  another 
and  younger  white  man  ?  " 

"How  could  she  ?  Would  not  he, 
too,  have  a  wife  who  would  watch 
her  ?  And  if  he  had  not,  and  were 
nofo  noa  (single),  would  he  be  such  a 
fool  to  steal  that  which  he  can  buy — 
for  there  are  many  girls  without 
husbands  as  good  to  look  on  as  that 
Nalia  of  thine.  And  all  women  are 
alike,"  and  then,  hearing  a  woman's 
voice  calling  his  name,  he  stood  up. 

"  Farewell,  O  ulu  tula  poto  "  (Wise 
Baldhead),  said  Challis,  as  the  boy, 
still  chewing  his  sweet  husk,  walked 
back  to  the  native  houses  clustered 
under  the  grove  of />//j  trees. 

Ere  dusk,  Nalia  came  home,  a 
slenderly-built  girl  with  big  dreamy 
eyes,  and  a  heavy  mantle  of  wavy 
hair.  A  white  muslin  gown,  fastened 
at  the  throat  with  a  small  silver 
brooch,  was  her  only  garment,  save 


28 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

the  folds  of  the  navy-blue-and-white 
lava  lava  round  her  waist,  which  the 
European-fashioned  garment  covered. 

Challis  was  lying  down  when  she 
came  in.  Two  girls  who  came  with 
her  carried  baskets  of  cooked  food, 
presents  from  old  Jack  Kelly,  Challis's 
fellow-trader.  At  a  sign  from  Nalia 
the  girls  took  one  of  the  baskets  of 
food  and  went  away.  Then,  taking 
off  her  wide-brimmed  hat  o'i fala  leaf, 
she  sat  down  beside  Challis  and 
pinched  his  cheek. 

"O  lazy  one!  To  let  me  walk  from 
the  house  of  Tiaki  all  alone  !  " 

"  Alone  !  There  were  three  ot 
thee." 

"Tapa  !  Could  I  talk  to  them!  I, 
a  white  man's  wife,  must  not  be  too 
familiar  with  every  girl  ;  else  they 
would  seek  to  get  presents  from  me 
with  sweet  words.  Besides,  could  I 
carry  home  the  fish  and  cooked  fowl 
sent  thee  by  old  Tiaki  .?  That  would 
be  unbecoming  to  me,  even  as  it 
would  be  if  thou  climbed  a  tree  for  a 
cocoanut" — and  the  Daughter  of  the 
Tropics  laughed  merrily  as  she  patted 
Challis  on  his  sunburnt  cheek. 

Challis  rose,  and  going  to  the  little 
table  took  from  it  the  ring. 


29 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

"  See,  Nalia,  I  am  not  lazy  as  thou 
sayest.     This  is  thine." 

The  girl,  with  an  eager  Aue  !  took 
the  bauble  and  placed  it  on  her  finger. 
She  made  a  pretty  picture,  standing 
there  in  the  last  glow  of  the  sun  as  it 
sank  into  the  ocean,  her  languorous 
eyes  filled  with  a  tender  light. 

Challis,  sitting  on  the  end  of  the 
table  regarding  her  with  half-amused 
interest  as  does  a  man  watching  a 
child  with  a  toy,  suddenly  flushed 
hotly  :  "By  God,  I  can't  be  such  a 
fool  as  to  begin  to  love  her  in  reality, 
but  yet  .  .  .  come  here,  Nalia,"  and 
he  drew  her  to  him,  and,  turning  her 
face  up  so  that  he  might  look  into  her 
eyes,  he  asked  : 

"  Nalia,  hast  thou  ever  told  me  any 
lies  ?  " 

The  steady  depths  of  those  dark 
eyes  looked  back  into  his,  and  she 
answered  : 

"  Nay,  I  fear  thee  too  much  to  lie. 
Thou  mightst  kill  me." 

"I  do  but  ask  thee  some  little 
things.  It  matters  not  to  me  what 
the  answer  is.  Yet  see  that  thou 
keepest  nothing  hidden   from  me." 

The  girl,  with  parted  lips  and  one 
hand  on  his,  waited. 


30 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

"Before  thou  became  my  wife, 
Nalia,  hadst  thou  any  lovers  ?  " 

"  Yes,  two — Kapua  and  Tafu-le- 
Afi." 

"And  since?" 

"  May  I  choke  and  perish  here 
before  thee  if  I  lie  !     None." 

Challis,  still  holding  her  soft  brown 
chin  in  his  hand,  asked  her  one  more 
question — a  question  that  only  one  of 
his  temperament  would  have  dared  to 
ask  a  girl  of  the  Tokelaus. 

"  Nalia,  dost  thou  love  me  ?  " 

"Aye,  alofa  tumau  (everlasting  love). 
Am  I  a  fool  ?  Are  there  not  Letia, 
and  Miriami,  and  Eline,  the  daughter 
of  old  Tiaki,  ready  to  come  to  this 
house  if  I  love  any  but  thee  ?  There- 
fore my  love  is  like  the  suckers  of  the 
fae  (octopus)  in  its  strength.  My 
mother  has  taught  me  much  wisdom." 

A  curious  feeling  of  satisfaction 
possessed  the  man,  and  next  day  Letia, 
the  "  show  "  girl  of  the  village,  visiting 
Challis's  store  to  buy  a  tin  of  salmon, 
saw  Nalia  the  Lucky  One  seated  on 
a  mat  beneath  the  seaward  side  of 
the  trader's  house,  surrounded  by  a 
billowy  pile  of  yellow  silk,  diligently 
sewing. 

"  Ho,  dear  friend  of  my  heart  !     Is 


31 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

that  silken  dress  for  thee  ?  For  the 
love  of  God,  let  me  but  touch  it. 
Four  dollars  a  fathom  it  be  priced  at. 
Thy  husband  is  indeed  the  king  or 
generosity.  Art  thou  to  become  a 
mother  ? " 

"Away,  silly  fool,  and  do  thy  buying 
and  pester  me  not." 

Challis,  coming  to  the  corner  of  the 
house,  leant  against  a  post,  and  some- 
thing white  showed  in  his  hand.  It 
was  a  letter.  His  letter  to  the  woman 
of  violet  eyes,  written  a  week  ago,  in 
the  half-formed  idea  of  sending  it  some 
day.  He  read  it  through,  and  then 
paused  and  looked  at  Nalia.  She 
raised  her  head  and  smiled.  Slowly, 
piece  by  piece,  he  tore  it  into  tiny 
little  squares,  and,  with  a  dreamy 
hand-wave,  threw  them  away.  The 
wind  held  them  in  mid-air  for  a 
moment,  and  then  carried  the  little 
white  flecks  to  the  beach. 

"What  is  it?"  said  the  bubbling 
voice  of  Letia  the  Disappointed. 

"Only  a  piece  of  paper  that  weighed 
as  a  piece  of  iron  on  my  bosom.  But 
it  is  gone  now." 

"  Even  so,"  said  Letia,  smelling  the 
gaudy  label  on  the  tin  of  salmon  in 


32 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

the  anticipative  ecstasy  of  a  true 
Polynesian,  '' pe  se  mea  faagotoimoana 
(like  a  thing  buried  deep  in  ocean). 
May  God  send  me  a  white  man  as 
generous  as  thee — a  whole  tin  of 
samani  for  nothing  !  Now  do  1  know 
that  Nalia  will  bear  thee  a  son." 

And  that  is  why  Challis  the  Doubter 
has  never  turned  up  again. 


33 


C( 


'Tis    in    the    Blood ^"^ 


E  were  in  Manton's 
Hotel  at  Levuka — 
Levuka  in  her  palmy- 
days.  There  were 
Robertson,  of  the 
barque  Rotumah ;  a  fat 
German  planter  from 
the  Yasawa  group ; 
Harry  the  Canadian,  a 
trader  from  the  Toke- 
laus — and  myself. 

Presently    a    knock 

came  to  the  door,  and 

Allan,  the  boatswain  of 

|||ttiiii    our  brig,  stood  hat  in 

•  *•*■    hand   before  us.      He 

was  a  stalwart  half-caste  of  Manhiki, 

and,    perhaps,     the     greatest     manaia 

(Lothario)  from   Ponape  to  Fiji. 


35 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

"  Captain  say  to  come  aboard, 
please.  He  at  the  consul's  for  papers 
— he  meet  you  at  boat,"  and  Allan 
left. 

"  By  shingo,  dot's  a  big  fellow," 
said  planter  Oppermann. 

"  Ay,"  said  Robertson,  the  trading 
skipper,  "and  a  good  man  with  his 
mauleys,  too.  He's  the  champion 
knocker-out  in  Samoa,  and  is  a  match 
for  any  Englishman  in  Polynesia,  let 
alone  foreigners" — with  a  sour  glance 
at  the  German. 

"  Well,  good-bye  all,"  I  said  ;  "I'm 
sorry,  Oppermann,  I  can't  stay  for 
another  day  for  your  wedding,  but 
our  skipper  isn't  to  be  got  at  any- 
how." 

The  trading  captain  and  Harry 
walked  with  me  part  of  the  way,  and 
they  commenced  the  usual  Fiji  gup. 

"Just  fancy  that  fat-headed  Dutch- 
man going  all  the  way  to  Samoa  and 
picking  on  a  young  girl  and  sending 
her  to  the  Sisters  to  get  educated 
properly  !  As  if  any  old  beach-girl 
isn't  good  enough  for  a  blessed  Dutch- 
man.     Have  you  seen  her?" 

"No,"  I  said;  "Oppermann  showed 
me  her  photo.  Pretty  girl.  Says  she's 
been   three  years  with  the  Sisters  in 


36 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

Samoa,  and  has  got  all  the  virtues  of 
her  white  father,  and  none  of  the 
vices  of  her  Samoan  mammy.  Told 
me  he's  spent  over  two  thousand 
dollars  on  her  already." 

Robertson  smiled  grimly  :  "  Ay,  I 
don't  doubt  it.  He's  been  all  round 
Levuka  cracking  her  up.  I  brought 
her  here  last  week,  and  the  Dutch- 
man's been  in  a  chronic  state  of  silly 
ever  since.  She's  an  almighty  fine 
girl.  She's  staying  with  the  Sisters 
here  till  the  marriage.  By  the  Lord, 
here  she  is  now  coming  along  the 
street  !  Bet  a  dollar  she's  been  round 
Vagadace  way,  where  there  are  some 
fast  Samoan  women  living.  'Tis  in  the 
blood,  I  tell  you." 

The  future  possessor  of  the  Opper- 
mann  body  and  estate  was  a  pretty 
girl.  Only  those  who  have  seen  fair 
young  Polynesian  half-castes — before 
they  get  married,  and  grow  coarse, 
and  drink  beer,  and  smoke  like  a 
factory  chimney — know  how  pretty. 

Our  boat  was  at  the  wharf,  and  just 
as  we  stood  talking  Allan  sauntered 
up  and  asked  me  for  a  dollar  to  get  a 
bottle  of  gin.  Just  then  the  German's 
fiancee  reached  us.  Robertson  intro- 
duced Harry  and  myself  to  her,  and 


37 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

then  said  good-bye.  She  stood  there 
in  the  broiling  Fijian  sun  with  a 
dainty  sunshade  over  her  face,  looking 
so  lovely  and  cool  in  her  spotless 
muslin  dress,  and  withal  so  innocent, 
that  I  no  longer  wondered  at  the 
Dutchman's  "  chronic  state  of  silly," 

Allan  the  Stalwart  stood  by  waiting 
for  his  dollar.  The  girl  laughed 
joyously  when  Harry  the  Canadian 
said  he  would  be  at  the  wedding  and 
have  a  high  time,  and  held  out  her 
soft  little  hand  as  he  bade  her  adieu 
and  strolled  off  for  another  drink. 

The  moment  Harry  had  gone  Allan 
was  a  new  man.  Pulling  off  his  straw 
hat,  he  saluted  her  in  Samoan,  and 
then  opened  fire. 

"  There  are  many  teine  lalelei 
(beautiful  girls)  in  the  world,  but 
there  is  none  so  beautiful  as  thou. 
Only  truth  do  I  speak,  for  I  have 
been  to  all  countries  of  the  world. 
Ask  him  who  is  here — our  supercargo 
— if  I  lie.  O,  maid  with  the  teeth 
of  pearl  and  face  like  Fetuao  (the 
morning  star),  my  stomach  is  drying 
up  with  the  fire  of  love." 

The  sunshade  came  a  little  lower, 
and  the  fingers  played  nervously  with 
the  ivory  handle.  I  leant  against  a 
cocoanut  tree  and  listened. 


38 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

"  Thy  name  is  Vacga.  See  that  ! 
How  do  I  know  ?  Aha,  how  do  I  ? 
Because,  for  two  years  or  more,  when- 
ever I  passed  by  the  stone-wall  of  the 
Sisters'dwellingin  Matafele,!  climbed 
up  and  watched  thee,  O  Star  of  the 
Morning,  and  I  heard  the  other  girls 
call  thee  Vaega.  Oho  !  and  some 
night  1  meant  to  steal  thee  away." 

The  rascal  !  He  told  me  two  days 
afterwards  that  the  only  time  he  ever 
climbed  the  Mission  wall  was  to  steal 
mangoes. 

The  sunshade  was  tilted  back,  and 
displayed  two  big,  black  eyes,  luminous 
with  admiring  wonder. 

"And  so  thou  hast  left  Samoa  to 
come  here  to  be  devoured  by  this  fat 
hog  of  a  Dutchman  !  Dost  thou  not 
know,  O  foolish,  lovely  one,  that  she 
who  mates  with  a  Siamani  (German) 
grows  old  in  quite  a  little  time,  and 
thy  face,  which  is  now  smooth  and 
fair,  will  be  coarse  as  the  rind  of  a 
half-ripe  breadfruit,  because  of  the 
bad  food  these  swine  of  Germans 
eat  ? " 

".Allan,"  I  called,  "here's  the  cap- 
tain !  " 

There  was  a  quick  clasp  of  hands 
as    the   Stalwart   One  and  the   Maid 


39 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

hurriedly  spoke  again,  this  time  in  a 
whisper,  and  then  the  white  muslin 
floated  away  out  of  sight. 

The  captain  was  what  he  called 
"no  so  dry" — viz.,  half-seas  over,  and 
very  jolly.  He  told  Allan  he  could 
have  an  hour  to  himself  to  buy  what 
he  wanted,  and  then  told  me  that  the 
captain  of  a  steam  collier  had  promised 
to  give  us  a  tug  out  at  daylight. 
"  I'm  right  for  the  wedding-feast  after 
all,"  I  thought. 

But  the  wedding  never  came  off. 
That  night,  Oppermann,  in  a  frantic 
state,  was  tearing  round  Levuka  hunt- 
ing for  his  love,  who  had  disappeared. 
At  daylight,  as  the  collier  steamed 
ahead  and  tautened  our  tow-line,  we 
could  see  the  parties  of  searchers  with 
torches  scouring  the  beach.  Our 
native  sailors  said  they  had  heard  a 
scream  about  ten  at  night  and  seen 
the  sharks  splashing,  and  the  white 
liars  of  Levuka  shook  their  heads  and 
looked  solemn  as  they  told  tales  of 
monster  sharks  with  eight-foot  jaws 
always  cruising  close  in  to  the  shore 
at  night. 

Three  days  afterwards  Allan  came 


40 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

to  me  with  a  stolid  face  and  asked  for 
a  bottle  of  wine,  as  Vaega  was  very 
sea-sick.  I  gave  him  the  wine,  and 
threatened  to  tell  the  captain.  He 
laughed,  and  said  he  would  fight  any 
man,  captain  or  no  captain,  who 
meddled  with  him.  And,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  felt  safe — the  skipper  valued 
him  too  much  to  bully  him  over  the 
mere  stealing  of  a  woman.  So  the 
limp  and  sea-sick  Vaega  was  carried 
up  out  of  the  sweating  foc'sle  and 
given  a  cabin  berth,  and  Allan 
planked  down  two  twenty  -  dollar 
pieces  for  her  passage  to  the  Union 
Group.  When  she  got  better  she 
sang  rowdy  songs,  and  laughed  all 
day,  and  made  fun  of  the  holy  Sisters. 
And  one  day  Allan  beat  her  with  a  deal 
board  because  she  sat  down  on  a  band- 
box in  the  trade-room  and  ruined  a 
hat  belonging  to  a  swell  official's  wife 
in  Apia.  And  she  liked  him  all  the 
better  for  it. 

The  fair  Vaega  was  Mrs.  Allan  for 
just  six  months,  when  his  erratic  fancy 
was  captivated  by  the  daughter  of 
Mauga,  the  chief  of  Tutuila,  and  an 
elopement  resulted  to  the  mountains. 
The  subsequent  and  inevitable  parting 


41 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

made  Samoa  an  undesirable  place  of 
residence  for  Allan,  who  shipped  as 
boatsteerer  in  the  Niger  of  New 
Bedford.  As  for  Vaega,  she  drifted 
back  to  Apia,  and  there,  right  under 
the  shadow  of  the  Mission  Church,  she 
flaunted  her  beauty.  The  last  time  I 
saw  her  was  in  Charley  the  Russian's 
saloon,  when  she  showed  me  a  letter. 
It  was  from  the  bereaved  Oppermann, 
asking  her  to  come  back  and  marry 
him. 

"  Are  you  going  ? "  I  said. 

"  E  pule  le  j4tua"  (if  God  so  wills), 
"  but  he  only  sent  me  twenty  dollars, 
and  that  isn't  half  enough.  However, 
there's  an  American  man-of-war  coming 
next  week,  and  these  other  girls  will 
see  then.  I'll  make  the  papalagi* 
officers  shell  out.      To  fa,  alii" 

*  Foreign, 


42 


The  Revenge  of  Macy 
O'Shea, 


A    STORY 
OF    THE    MARQUESAS. 

I. 

IKENA  the  Club- 
Footed  guided  me  to 
an  open  spot  in  the 
jungle-growth,  and, 
sitting  down  on  the 
butt  of  a  twisted  toa, 
indicated  by  a  sweep 
of  his  tattooed  arm  the 
lower  course  of  what 
had  once  been  the 
White  Man's  dwelling. 
"Like  unto  himself 
was  this,  his  house,"  he 
said,  puffing  a  dirty 
clay  pipe,  "  square- 
built  and  strong.  And 
the  walls  were  of 
great  blocks  made  of 
pariuina — of  coral  and 


43 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 


lime  and  sand  mixed  together  ;  and 
around  each  centre-post — posts  that  to 
lift  one  took  the  strength  of  fifty  men 
— was  wound  two  thousand  fathoms 
of  thin  plaited  cinnet,  stained  red  and. 
black.  Jpd!  he  was  a  great  man  here 
in  these  motu  (islands)  although  he  fled 
from  prison  in  your  land ;  and  when 
he  stepped  on  the  beach  the  marks  of 
the  iron  bands  that  had  once  been 
round  his  ankles  were  yet  red  to  the 
sight.  There  be  none  such  as  he  in 
these  days.     But  he  is  now  in  Hell." 

This  was  the  long-deferred  funeral 
oration  of  Macy  O'Shea,  sometime 
member  of  the  chain-gang  of  Port 
Arthur,  and  subsequently  runaway 
convict,  beachcomber,  cutter-ofF  of 
whaleships,  and  Gentleman  of  Leisure 
in  Eastern  Polynesia.  And  of  his 
many  known  crimes  the  deed  done  in 
this  isolated  spot  was  the  darkest  of 
all.     Judge  of  it  yourself. 

The  arrowy  shafts  of  sunrise  had 
scarce  pierced  the  deep  gloom  of  the 
silent  forest  ere  the  village  woke  to 
life.  Right  beside  the  thatch-covered 
dwelling  of  Macy  O'Shea,  now  a  man 
of  might,  there  towers  a  stately  tamanu 
tree  ;  and,  as  the   first  faint  murmur 


44 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

of  women's  voices  arises  from  the 
native  huts,  there  is  a  responsive  twit- 
tering and  cooing  in  the  thickly- 
leaved  branches,  and  further  back  in 
the  forest  the  heavy  booming  note  of 
the  red-crested  pigeon  sounds  forth 
like  the  beat  of  a  muffled  drum. 

With  slow,  languid  step,  Sera,  the 
wife  of  Macy  O'Shea,  comes  to  the  open 
door  and  looks  out  upon  the  placid 
lagoon,  now  just  rippling  beneath  the 
first  breath  of  the  trade-wind,  and  longs 
for  courage  to  go  out  there — there  to 
the  point  of  the  reef — and  spring  over 
among  the  sharks.  The  girl — she  is 
hardly  yet  a  woman — shudders  a  mo- 
ment and  passes  her  white  hand  before 
her  eyes,  and  then,  with  a  sudden  gust 
of  passion,  the  hand  clenches.  "  I 
would  kill  him — kill  him  if  there  was 
but  a  ship  here  to  get  away  !  I  would 
sell  myself  over  and  over  again  to  the 
worst  whaler's  crew  that  ever  sailed  the 
Pacific  if  it  would  bring  me  freedom 
from  this  cruel,  cold-blooded  devil  !  " 

A  heavy  tread  on  the  matted  floor 
of  the  inner  room  and  her  face  pales 
to  the  hue  of  death.  But  Macy 
O'Shea   is  somewhat  shy  of  his   two 


45 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

years'  wife  this  morning,  and  she  hears 
the  heavy  steps  recede  as  he  walks 
over  to  his  oil-shed.  A  flock  of  gogo 
cast  their  shadow  over  the  lagoon  as 
they  fly  westward,  and  the  woman's 
eyes  follow  them — "Kill  him,  yes. 
I  am  afraid  to  die,  but  not  to  kill. 
And  I  am  a  stranger  here,  and  if  I 
ran  a  knife  into  his  fat  throat,  these 
natives  would  make  me  work  in  the 
taro-fields,  unless  one  wanted  me  for 
himself."  Then  the  heavy  step  re- 
turns, and  she  slowly  faces  round  to 
the  bloodshot  eyes  and  drink-distorted 
face  of  the  man  she  hates,  and  raises 
one  hand  to  her  lips  to  hide  a  blue 
and  swollen  bruise. 

The  man  throws  his  short,  square- 
set  figure  on  a  rough  native  sofa,  and, 
passing  one  brawny  hand  meditatively 
over  his  stubbly  chin,  says,  in  a  voice 
like  the  snarl  of  a  hungry  wolf,  "Here, 
I  say,  Sera,  slew  round  ;  I  want  to 
talk  to  you,  my  beauty." 

The  pale,  set  face  flushed  and  paled 
again.     "What  is  it,  Macy  O'Shea  ?" 

"Ho,  ho,  'Macy  O'Shea,'  is  it? 
Well,  just  this.  Don't  be  a  fool.  I 
was  a  bit  put  about  last  night,  else  I 
wouldn't  have  been  so  quick  with  my 


46 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

fist.  Cut  your  lip,  I  see.  Well,  you 
must  forget  it  ;  any  way,  it's  the  first 
time  I  ever  touched  you.  But  you 
ought  to  know  by  now  that  I  am  not 
a  man  to  be  trifled  with  ;  no  man,  let 
alone  a  woman,  is  going  to  set  a  course 
for  Macy  O'Shea  to  steer  by.  And, 
to  come  to  the  point  at  once,  I  want 
you  to  understand  that  Carl  Ristow's 
daughter  is  coming  here.  I  want  her, 
and  that's  all  about  it." 

The  woman  laughed  scornfully. 
"  Yes,  I  know.  That  was  why  " — 
she  pointed  to  her  lips.  "  Have  you 
no  shame  ?  I  know  you  have  no  pity. 
But  listen.  I  swear  to  you  by  the 
Mother  of  Christ  that  I  will  kill  her 
— kill  you,  if  you  do  this." 

O'Shea's  cruel  mouth  twitched  and 
his  jaws  set,  then  he  uttered  a  hoarse 
laugh.  "By  God  !  Has  it  taken  you 
two  years  to  get  jealous  ? " 

A  deadly  hate  gleamed  in  the  dark, 
passionate  eyes.  "Jealous,  Mother  of 
God  !  Jealous  of  a  drunken,  licentious 
wretch  such  as  you  !  I  hate  you,  hate 
you  1  If  1  had  courage  enough  I  would 
poison  myself  to  be  free  from  you." 

O'Shea's  eyes  emitted  a  dull  sparkle. 
"I  wish  you  would,  damn  you  !     Yet 


47 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

you  are  game  enough,  you  say,  to  kill 
me — and  Malia  ?  " 

"  Yes.  But  not  for  love  of  you. 
But  because  of  the  white  blood  in 
me.  I  can't — I  won't  be  degraded  by. 
you  bringing  another  woman  here." 

" '  Por  Dios,'  as  your  dad  used  to 
say  before  the  devil  took  his  soul, 
we'll  see  about  that,  my  beauty.  I 
suppose    because    your    father   was    a 

d d  garlic-eating,  ear-ringed  Dago, 

and  your  mother  a  come-by-chance 
Tahiti  half-caste,  you  think  he  was  as 
good  as  me." 

"As  good  as  you,  O  bloody-handed 
dog  of  an  English  convict.  He  was  a 
man,  and  the  only  wrong  he  ever  did 
was  to  let  me  become  wife  to  a  devii 
like  you." 

The  cruel  eyes  were  close  to  hers 
now,  and  the  rough,  brawny  hands 
gripped    her    wrists.      "You    spiteful 

Portuguese  quarter-bred !      Call 

me  a  convict  again  and  I'll  twist  your 
neck  like  a  fowl's.  You  she-devil  ! 
I'd  have  made  things  easy  for  you  — 
but  I  won't  now.  Do  you  hear  i " 
and  the  grip  tightened.  "  Ristow's 
girl  will  be  here  to-morrow,  and  if 
you  don't  knuckle  down  to  her  it'll  be 
a  case  of  'Vamos'  for  you — you   can 


48 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

go  and  get  a  husband  among  the 
natives,"  and  he  flung  her  aside  and 
went  to  the  god  that  ran  him  closest 
for  his  soul,  next  to  women — his  rum- 
bottle. 

O'Shea  kept  his  word,  for  two  days 
later  Malia,  the  half-caste  daughter  of 
Ristow,  the  trader  at  Ahunui,  stepped 
from  out  her  father's  whaleboat  in 
front  of  O'Shea's  house.  The  trans- 
action was  a  perfectly  legitimate  one, 
and  Malia  did  not  allow  any  incon- 
venient feeling  of  modesty  to  interfere 
with  such  a  lucrative  arrangement  as 
this  whereby  her  father  became  pos- 
sessed of  a  tun  of  oil  and  a  bag  of 
Chilian  dollars,  and  she  of  much  finery. 
In  those  days  missionaries  had  not 
made  much  headway,  and  gentlemen 
like  Messrs.  Ristow  and  O'Shea  took 
all  the  wind  out  of  the  Gospel  drum. 

And  so  Malia,  dressed  as  a  native  girl, 
with  painted  cheeks  and  bare  bosom, 
walked  demurely  up  from  the  boat  to 
the  purchaser  of  her  sixteen-years'- 
old  beauty,  who,  with  arms  folded 
across  his  broad  chest,  stood  in  the 
middle  of  the  path  that  led  from  the 
beach  to  his  door.  And  within,  with 
set  teeth  and  a  knife  in  the  bosom  of 


49 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

her  blouse  bodice,  Sera   panted  with 
the  lust  of  Hate  and  Revenge. 

The  bulky  form  of  O'Shea  darkened 
the  doorway.  "  Sera,"  he  called  in 
English,  with  a  mocking,  insulting  in- 
flexion in  his  voice,  "  come  here  and 
welcome  my  new  wife  !  " 

Sera  came,  walking  slowly  over 
with  a  smile  on  her  lips  and  holding 
out  her  left  hand  to  Malia,  said  in  the 
native  language,  "Welcome  I  " 

"  Why,"  said  O'Shea,  with  mocking 
jocularity,  "  that's  a  left-handed  v/el- 
come.  Sera." 

"Aye,"  said  the  girl  with  the  White 
Man's  blood,  "my  right  hand  is  for 
this " — and  the  knife  sank  home  into 
Malia's  yellow  bosom.  "A  cold  bosom 
for  you  to-night,  Macy  O'Shea,"  she 
laughed,  as  the  value  of  a  tun  of  oil 
and  a  bag  of  Chilian  dollars  gasped, 
out  its  life  upon  the  matted  floor. 

II. 

The  native  drum  was  beating.  As 
the  blood-quickening  boom  reverbe- 
rated through  the  village,  the  natives 
came  out  from  their  huts  and  gathered 
around  the  House  of  the  Old  Men, 
where,  with  bound  hands  and  feet,  Sera, 


<0 


BY     REEF    AND    PALM. 

the  White  Man's  wife,  sat,  with  her 
back  to  one  of  the  centre-posts.  And 
opposite  her,  sitting  like  a  native  on  a 
mat  of  kapau,  was  the  burly  figure  of 
0'Shea,with  the  demon  of  disappointed 
passion  eating  away  his  reason  and  a 
mist  of  blood  swimming  before  his  eyes. 

The  people  all  detested  her,  espe- 
cially the  soft-voiced,  slender-framed 
women.  In  that  one  thing  savages 
resemble  Christians — the  deadly  hatred 
with  which  women  hate  those  of  their 
sex  whom  they  know  to  be  better  and 
more  pure  than  themselves.  So  the 
matter  was  decided  quickly.  Mesi — 
so  they  called  O'Shea — should  have 
justice.  If  he  thought  death,  let  it 
be  death  for  this  woman  who  had  let 
out  the  blood  of  his  new  wife.  Only 
one  man,  Loloku  the  Boar  Hunter, 
raised  his  voice  for  her,  because  Sera 
had  cured  him  of  a  bad  wound  when 
his  leg  had  been  torn  open  by  the 
tusk  of  a  wild  boar.  But  the  dull 
glare  from  the  eyes  of  O'Shea  fell  on 
him  and  he  said  no  more.  Then  at  a 
sign  from  the  old  men  the  people  rose 
from  the  mats  and  two  unbound  the 
cords  of  a/a  from  the  girl  and  led  her 


51 


HY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

out    into    the    square    and    looked    at 
O'Shea. 

"  Take  her  to  the  boat,"  he  said. 

Ristow's  boat  had  been  hauled  up, 
turned  over,  and  covered  with  the 
rough  mats  called  kapau  to  keep  off 
the  heat  of  the  sun.  With  staggering 
feet,  but  undaunted  heart,  the  girl 
Sera  was  led  down.  Only  once  she 
turned  her  head  and  looked  back. 
Perhaps  Loloku  would  try  again. 
Then,  as  they  came  to  the  boat,  a 
young  girl,  at  a  sign  from  O'Shea, 
took  off  the  loose  blouse,  and  they 
placed  her,  face  downwards,  across 
the  bilge  of  the  boat,  and  two  pair  of 
small,  eager,  brown  hands  each  seized 
one  of  hers  and  dragged  the  white, 
rounded  arms  well  over  the  keel  of 
the  boat.  O'Shea  walked  round  to 
that  side,  drawing  through  his  hands 
the  long,  heavy,  and  serrated  tail  of 
the  fai — the  gigantic  stinging-ray  of 
Oceana.  He  would  have  liked  to 
wield  it  himself,  but  then  he  would 
have  missed  part  of  his  revenge — he 
could  not  have  seen  her  face.  So 
he  gave  it  to  a  native,  and  watched, 
with  the  smile  of  a  fiend,  the  white 
back  turn  black  and  then  into  bloody 


52 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

red  as  it  was  cut  to  pieces  with  the 
tail  of  th.tfai. 

The  sight  of  the  inanimate  thing 
that  had  given  no  sign  of  its  agony 
beyond  the  shudderings  and  twitchings 
of  torn  and  mutilated  flesh  was  per- 
haps disappointing  to  the  tiger  who 
stood  and  watched  the  dark  stream 
that  flowed  down  on  both  sides  of  the 
boat.  Loloku  touched  his  arm — 
*'  Mesi,  stay  your  hand.  She  is  dead 
else." 

"Ah,"  said  O'Shea,  "that  would  be 
a  pity,  for  with  one  hand  shall  she 
live  to  plant  taro." 

And,  hatchet  in  hand,  he  walked  in 
between  the  two  brown  women  who 
held  her  hands.  They  moved  aside 
and  let  go.  Then  O'Shea  swung  his 
arm  and  the  blade  of  the  hatchet 
struck  into  the  planking,  and  the 
right  hand  of  Sera  fell  on  the  sand. 

A  man  put  his  arms  around  her, 
and  lifted  her  off  the  boat.  He 
placed  his  hand  on  the  blood-stained 
bosom  and  looked  at  Macy  O'Shea. 

"  E  mate!  "  '  he  said. 

»  Dead! 


53 


The  Rangers  of  the  Tia 
Kau. 


ETWEEN  Nanomea 
and  Nanomaga  —  two 
of  the  Ellice  Group — 
but  within  a  few  miles 
of  the  latter,  is  an  ex- 
tensive submerged  shoal, 
on  the  charts  called  the 
Grand  Cocal  Reef,  but 
by  the  people  of  the 
two  islands  known  as 
Tia  Kau  (The  Reef). 
On  the  shallowest  part 
there  are  from  four  to 
ten  fathoms  of  water, 
and  here  in  heavy- 
weather  the  sea  breaks. 
The  British  cruiser  Basilisk,  about 
1870,  sought  for  the  reef,  but  reported 


55 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

it  as  non-existent.  Yet  the  Tia  Kau 
is  well  known  to  many  a  Yankee 
whaler  and  trading  schooner,  and  is 
a  favourite  fishing-ground  of  the  people 
of  Nanomaga — when  the  sharks  give 
them  a  chance. 

One  night  Atupa,  King  of  Nano- 
maga, caused  a  huge  fire  to  be  lit  on 
the  beach  as  a  signal  to  the  people  of 
Nanomea  that  a  malaga^  or  party  of 
voyagers,  was  coming  over.  Both 
islands  are  low — not  more  than  fifteen 
feet  above  sea-level — and  are  distant 
from  one  another  about  thirty-eight 
miles.  The  following  night  the  re- 
flection of  the  answering  fire  on 
Nanomea  was  seen,  and  Atupa  pre- 
pared to  send  away  his  people  in 
seven  canoes.  They  would  start  at 
sundown,  so  as  to  avoid  paddling  in 
the  heat  (the  Nanomagans  have  no 
sailing  canoes),  and  be  guided  to 
Nanomea,  which  they  expected  to 
reach  early  in  the  morning,  by  the 
reflection  of  the  great  fires  of  cocoa- 
nut  and  pandanus  leaves  kindled  at 
intervals  of  a  few  hours.  About 
seventy  people  were  to  go,  and  all 
that  day  the  little  village  busied  itself 
in  preparing  for  the  Nanomeans  gifts 


56 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

of  foods — cooked  puraka,  fowls,  pigs, 
and  flying-fish. 

•  •  •  • 

Atupa,  the  heathen  king,  was 
troubled  in  his  mind  in  those  days 
of  August,  1872.  Th.Q  John  Williams 
had  been  there  and  landed  a  Samoan 
missionary,  who  had  pressed  him  to 
accept  Christianity.  Atupa,  dread- 
ing a  disturbing  element  in  his  king- 
dom, had,  at  first,  declined  ;  but  the 
ship  had  come  again,  and  the  king 
having  consented  to  try  the  new 
religion,  a  teacher  landed.  But  since 
then  he  and  his  chiefs  had  consulted 
the  oracle,  and  had  been  told  that 
the  shades  of  Maumau  Tahori  and 
Foilagi,  their  deified  ancestors,  had 
answered  that  the  new  religion  was 
unacceptable  to  them,  and  that  the 
Samoan  teacher  must  be  killed  or  sent 
away.  And  for  this  was  Atupa  send- 
ing off  some  of  his  people  to  Nanomea 
with  gifts  of  goodwill  to  the  chiefs  to 
beseech  them  to  consult  their  oracles, 
also  so  that  the  two  islands  might  take 
concerted  action  against  this  new 
foreign  god,  which  said  that  all  men 
were  equal,  that  all  were  bad,  and  He 
and  His  Son  alone  good. 


57 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

The  night  was  calm  when  the 
seven  canoes  set  out.  Forty  men  and 
thirty  women  and  children  were  in 
the  party,  and  the  craft  were  too 
deeply  laden  for  any  but  the  smoothest 
sea.  On  the  ama  (outrigger)  of  each 
canoe  were  the  baskets  of  food  and 
bundles  of  mats  for  their  hosts,  and 
seated  on  these  the  children,  while 
the  women  sat  with  the  men  and 
helped  them  to  paddle.  Two  hours' 
quick  paddling  brought  them  to  the 
shoal-water  of  Tia  Kau,  and  at  the 
same  moment  they  saw  to  the  N.W. 
the  sky-glare  of  the  first  guiding  fire. 

It  was  then  that  the  people  in  the 
first  canoe,  wherein  was  Palu,  the 
daughter  of  Atupa,  called  out  to  those 
behind  to  prepare  their  asu  (balers), 
as  a  heavy  squall  was  coming  down 
from  the  eastward.  Then  Laheu,  an 
old  warrior  in  another  canoe,  cried 
out  that  they  should  return  on  their 
track  a  little  and  get  into  deep  water; 
"for,"  said  he,  "if  we  svvamp,  away 
from  Tia  Kau,  it  is  but  a  little  thing, 
but  here — "  and  he  clasped  his  hands 
rapidly  together  and  then  tore  them 
apart.  They  knew  what  he  meant — 
the  sharks  that,  at  night-time  forsaking 


58 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

the  deep  waters,  patrolled  in  droves 
of  thousands  the  shallow  waters  of  the 
reef  to  devour  the  turtle  and  the  schools 
of  tafau  uli  and  other  fish.  In  quick, 
alarmed  silence  the  people  headed 
back,  but  even  then  the  first  fierce 
squall  struck  them, and  some  of  the  frail 
canoes  began  to  fill  at  once.  '■'■  I matagi! 
i  matagi!"  (head  to  the  wind)  a  man 
called  out  ;  "head  to  the  wind,  or  we 
perish  !    'Tis  but  a  pufF  and  it's  gone." 

But  it  was  more  than  a  puiF.  The 
seven  canoes,  all  abreast,  were  still  in 
shallow  water,  and  the  paddlers  kept 
them  dead  in  the  teeth  of  the  whist- 
ling wind  and  stinging  rain,  and 
called  out  words  of  encouragement 
to  one  another  and  to  the  women 
and  children,  as  another  black  squall 
burst  upon  them  and  the  curling  seas 
began  to  break.  The  canoe  in  which 
was  Atupa's  daughter  was  the  largest 
and  best  of  all  the  seven,  but  was 
much  overladen,  and  on  the  outrigger 
grating  were  four  children.  These 
the  chief's  daughter  was  endeavouring 
to  shield  from  the  rain  by  covering 
them  with  a  mat,  when  one  of  them, 
a  little  girl,  endeavoured  to  steady 
herself  by  holding  to  one  of  the  thin 


Jjq 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

pieces  of  grating  ;  it  broke,  and  her 
arm  fell  through  and  struck  the  water, 
and  in  an  instant  she  gave  a  dull, 
smothered  wail.  Palu,  the  woman, 
seized  her  by  her  hair  and  pulled  the 
child  up  sitting,  and  then  shrieked 
with  terror — the  girl's  arm  was  gone  ! 

And  then  in  the  blackness  of  night, 
lightened  now  by  the  white,  seething, 
boiling  surge,  the  people  saw  in  the 
phosphorescent  water  countless  hun- 
dreds of  the  savage  terrors  of  the  Tia 
Kau  darting  hither  and  thither  amongst 
the  canoes — for  the  smell  of  blood  had 
brought  them  together  instantly.  Pre- 
sently a  great  grey  monster  tore  the 
paddle  from  out  the  hands  of  the 
steersman  of  the  canoe  wherein  were 
the  terrified  Palu  and  the  four  chil- 
dren, and  then,  before  the  man  for'ard 
could  bring  her  head  to  the  wind,  she 
broached  to  and  filled.  Like  ravening 
wolves  the  sharks  dashed  upon  their 
prey,  and  ere  the  people  had  time  to 
give  more  than  a  despairing  cry  those 
hideous  jaws  and  gleaming  cruel  teeth 
had  sealed  their  fate.  Maddened  with 
fear,  the  rest  of  the  people  threw 
everything  out  of  the  six  other  canoes 
to  lighten  them,  and  as  the  bundles  of 


60 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

mats  and  baskets  of  food  touched  the 
water  the  sharks  seized  and  bit,  tore 
and  swallowed.  Then,  one  by  one, 
every  paddle  was  grabbed  from  the 
hands  of  the  pullers,  and  the  canoes 
broached  to  and  filled  in  that  sea  of 
death — all  save  one,  which  was  carried 
by  the  force  of  the  wind  away  from 
the  rest.  In  this  were  the  only  sur- 
vivors— two  men. 

The  agony  could  not  have  lasted 
long.  "  Were  I  to  live  as  long  as 
he  whom  the  faifeau  (missionary)  tells 
us  lived  to  be  nine  hundred  and  sixty 
and  nine,  I  shall  hear  the  groans  and 
cries  and  shrieks  of  that  po  malaia^ 
that  night  of  evil  luck,"  said  one  of 
the  two  who  lived,  to  the  white  trader 
at  Nanomea.  "  Once  did  I  have  my 
paddle  fast  in  the  mouth  of  a  little 
devil,  and  it  drew  me  backwards, 
backwards,  over  the  stern  till  my  head 
touched  the  water.  Tah  !  but  I  was 
strong  with  fear,  and  held  on,  for  to 
lose  it  meant  death  by  the  teeth.  And 
Tulua — he  who  came  out  alive  with 
me,  seized  my  feet  and  held  on,  else 
had  I  gone.  But  look  thou  at  this" — 
and  he  pointed  to  his  scarred  neck 
and  back  and  shoulders — "ere  I  could 


6i 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

free  va.y  foe  (paddle)  and  raise  my  head 
I  was  bitten  thus  by  others.  Ah, 
Papalagi,  some  men  are  born  to 
wisdom,  but  most  are  fools.  Had 
not  Atupa  been  filled  with  vain  fears, 
he  had  killed  the  man  who  caused  him 
to  lose  so  many  of  our  people." 

"So,"  said  the  white  man,  "and 
wouldst  thou  have  killed  the  man 
who  brought  thee  the  new  faith  ? 
Fie  !  " 

"Aye,  that  would  I — in  those  days 
when  I  was  po  uli  uli.^  But  not  now, 
for  I  am  Christian.  Yet  had  Atupa 
killed  and  buried  the  stranger,  we 
could  have  lied  and  said  he  died  of  a 
sickness  when  they  of  his  people  came 
to  seek  him.  And  then  had  I  now  my 
son  Tagipo  with  me,  he  who  went 
into  the  bellies  of  the  sharks  at  Tia 
Kau." 

»  Heathen,  lit.,  "  In  the  blackest  night." 


62 


Pallous  Taloi, 


A    MEMORY    OF    THE    PAUMOTUS. 


STAYED  once  at  Ro- 
toava  —  in  the  Low 
Archipelago,  Eastern 
Polynesia — while  suf- 
fering from  injuries 
received  in  a  boat  acci- 
dent one  wild  night. 
My  host,  the  Rotoava 
trader,  was  a  sociable 
old  pirate,  whose  con- 
vivial soul  would  never 
let  him  drink  alone. 
He  was  by  trade  a 
boat  -  builder,  having 
had,  in  his  early  days,  a 
shed  at  Miller's  Point, 
in  Sydney,  where  he 
made  money  and  mar- 
ried a  wife.     But    this 


63 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

latter  event  was  poor  Tom  Oscott's 
undoing,  and  in  the  end  he  took 
his  chest  of  tools  on  board  the 
Th-^ra  and  sailed  away  to  Polynesia. 
Finally,  after  many  years'  wandering, 
he  settled  down  at  Rotoava  as  a  trader 
and  boat-builder,  and  a  noted  drinker 
of  bottled  beer. 

The  only  method  by  which  I  could 
avoid  his  incessant  invitations  to  "have 
another"  was  to  get  his  wife  and 
children  to  carry  me  down  to  his 
work-shed,  a  lovely  spot  surrounded 
by  giant  puka  trees.  Here,  under  the 
shade,  I  had  my  mats  spread,  and  with 
one  of  his  children  sitting  at  my  head 
to  fan  away  the  flies,  I  lay  and  watched, 
through  the  belt  of  cocoanuts  that 
lined  the  beach,  the  blue  rollers 
breaking  on  the  reef  and  the  snow- 
white  boatswain-birds  floating  high 
overhead, 

Tom  was  in  the  bush  one  morning 
when  his  family  carried  me  to  the 
boat-shed.  He  had  gone  for  a  log  ot 
seasoned  100"^  wood  to  another  village. 
At  noon  he  returned,  and  I  heard  him 
bawling  for  me.  His  little  daughter, 
the  fly-brusher,  gave  an  answering 
'  A  hard  wood  much  used  in  boat-building. 


64 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

yell,  and  then  Tom  walked  down  the 
path,  carrying  two  bottles  of  beer  ; 
behind  him  Lucia,  his  eldest  daughter, 
a  monstrous  creature  of  giggles  and 
adipose  tissue,  with  glasses  and  a  plate 
of  crackers  ;  lastly,  old  Marie,  the 
wife,  with  a  little  table. 

"  By ,  you've  a  lot  more  sense'n 

me.  It's  better  lyin'  here  in  the  cool 
than  foolin'  around  in  the  sun  ;  so  I've 
brought  yer  suthin'  to  drink." 

"  Oh,  Tom,"  I  groaned,  "  I'm  sure 
that  beer's  bad  for  me." 

The  Maker  of  Boats  sat  on  his  bench, 
and  said  that  he  knew  of  a  brewer's 
carter  in  Sydney  who,  at  Merriman's 
pub.  on  Miller's  Point,  had  had  a 
cask  of  beer  roll  over  him.  Smashed 
seven  ribs,  one  arm,  and  one  thigh. 
Doctors  gave  him  up  ;  undertaker's 
man  called  on  his  wife  for  coffin 
order ;  but  a  sailor  chap  said  he'd 
pull  him  through.  Got  an  india- 
rubber  tube  and  made  him  suck  up 
as  much  beer  as  he  could  hold  ;  kept 
it  up  till  all  his  bones  "setted"  again, 
and  he  recovered.  Why  shouldn't  I 
— if  I  only  drank   enough  ? 

"Hurry  up,  old  dark-skin  !" — this 
to  the  faded  Marie.  Uttering  merely 
the  word  "  Hog  !  "  she  drew  the  cork. 


6S 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

I  had  to  drink  some,  and  every  hour 
or  so  Tom  would  say  it  was  very  hot, 
and  open  yet  another  bottle.  At  last 
I  escaped  the  beer  by  nearly  dying, 
and  then  the  kind  old  fellow  hurried 
away  in  his  boat  to  Apatiki — another 
island  of  the  group — and  came  back 
with  some  bottles  of  claret,  bought 
from  the  French  trader  there. 

With  him  came  two  visitors — a 
big  half-caste  of  middle  age,  and  his 
wife,  a  girl  of  twenty  or  thereabout. 
This  was  Edward  Pallou  and  his  wife 
Taloi. 

I  was  in  the  house  when  Tom 
returned,  enjoying  a  long-denied 
smoke.  Pallou  and  his  wife  entered 
and  greeted  me.  The  man  was  a  fine, 
well-set-up  fellow,  wiry  and  muscular, 
with  deep-set  eyes,  and  bearing  across 
his  right  cheek  a  heavy  scar.  His 
wife  was  a  dainty  little  creature  with 
red  lips,  dazzling  teeth,  hazel  eyes, 
and  long,  wavy  hair.  The  first  thing 
I  noticed  about  her  was  that  instead 
of  squatting  on  a  mat  in  native  fashion 
she  sank  into  a  wide  chair,  and  lying 
back  inquired,  with  a  pleasant  smile 
and  in  perfect  English,  whether  I  was 
feeling  any  better.     She  was  very  fair, 


66 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

even  for  a  Paumotuan  half-caste,  as 
I  thought  she  must  be,  and  I  said  to 
Pallou,  "Why,  any  one  would  take 
your  wife  to  be  an  Englishwoman  I " 

"Not  I,"said  Taloi,  with  a  rippling 
laugh,  as  she  commenced  to  make  a 
banana-leaf  cigarette;  "I  am  a  full- 
blooded  South  Sea  Islander.  I  belong 
to  Apatiki,  and  was  born  there. 
Perhaps  I  have  white  blood  in  me. 
Who  knows?  —  only  wise  mothers. 
But  when  I  was  twelve  years  old  I 
was  adopted  by  a  gentleman  in  Papeite, 
and  he  sent  me  to  Sydney  to  school. 
Do  you  know  Sydney  ?     Well,  I  was 

three  years  with  the   Misses ,  in 

Street.      My    goodness  !    I   was 

glad  to  leave — and  so  were  the  Misses 

to  see  me  go.     They  said  I  was 

downright  wicked,  because  one  day  I 
tore  the  dress  off  a  girl  who  said  my 
skin  was  tallowy,  like  my  name. 
When  I  came  back  to  Tahiti  my 
guardian  took  me  to  Raiatea,  where 
he  had  a  business,  and  said  I  must 
marry  him,  the  beast." 

"  Oh,  shut  up,  Taloi  !  "  growled 
the  deep-voiced  Pallou,  who  sat  beside 
me.  "  What  the  deuce  does  this  man 
care  about  your  doings  ?  " 

"  Shut  up  yourself, you  brute!  Can't 


67 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

I  talk  to  any  one  I  like,  you  turtle- 
headed  fool  ?  Am  I  not  a  good  wife 
to  you,  you  great,  over-grown  savage  ? 
Won't  you  let  a  poor  devil  of  a  woman 
talk  a  little?  Look  here,  Tom,  do 
you  see  that  flash  jacket  he's  wearing? 
Well,  I  sat  up  two  nights  making  that 
— for  him  to  come  over  here  with  and 
show  off  before  the  Rotoava  girls.  Go 
and  die,  you !  " 

The  big  half-caste  looked  at  Tom 
and  me.  His  lips  twitched  with 
suppressed  passion,  and  a  dangerous 
gleam  shone  a  moment  in  his  dark 
eyes. 

"  Here,  I  say,  Taloi,"  broke  in  Tom, 
good-humouredly,  "just  go  easy  a  bit 
with  Ted.  As  for  him  a-looking  at 
any  of  the  girls  here,  I  knows  better 
— and  so  do  you." 

Taloi's  laugh,  clear  as  the  note  of  a 
bird,  answered  him,  and  then  she  said 
she  was  sorry,  and  the  lines  around 
Pallou's  rigid  mouth  softened  down. 
It  was  easy  to  see  that  this  grim  half- 
white  loved,  for  all  her  bitter  tongue, 
the  bright  creature  who  sat  in  the  big 
chair. 

Presently  Taloi  and  Lucia  went  out 
to  bathe,  and  Pallou  remained  with  me. 


68 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

Tom  joined  us,  and  for  a  while  no  one 
spoke.  Then  the  trader,  laying  down 
his  pipe  on  the  table,  drew  his  seat 
closer,  and  commenced,  in  low  tones, 
a  conversation  in  Tahitian  with  Pallou. 
From  the  earnest  manner  of  old  Tom 
and  the  sullen  gloom  that  overspread 
Pallou's  face,  I  could  discern  that  some 
anxiety  possessed  them. 

At  last  Tom  addressed  me,  "  Look 

here, ,  Ted  here  is  in  a  mess,  and 

we've  just  been  a-talkin'  of  it  over, 
and  he  says  perhaps  you'll  do  what 
you  can  for  him." 

The  half-caste  turned  his  dark  eyes 
on  me  and  looked  intently  into  mine. 

"What  is  it,  Tom?" 

"Well,  you  see,  it  come  about  this 
way.  You  heard  this  chap's  missus — 
Taloi — a-talkin' about  the  Frenchman 
that  wanted  to  marry  her.  He  had 
chartered  a  little  schooner  in  Papeite 
to  go  to  Raiatea.  Pallou  here  was 
mate,  and,  o'  course,  he  being  from  the 
same  part  of  the  group  as  Taloi,  she 
ups  and  tells  him  that  the  Frenchman 
wanted  to  marry  her  straightaway  ; 
and  then,  I  s'pose,  the  tw^o  gets  a  bit 
chummy,  and  Pallou  tells  her  that  if 
she  didn't  want  the  man  he'd  see  as 
how  she  wasn't  forced  agin'  her  will. 


69 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 


So  when  the  vessel  gets  to  Raiatea  it 
fell  calm,  just  about  sunset.  The 
Frenchman  was  in  a  hurry  to  get 
ashore,  and  tells  his  skipper  to  put 
two  men  in  the  boat  and  some  grub, 
as  he  meant  to  pull  ashore  to  his 
station.  So  they  put  the  boat  over 
the  side,  and  Frenchy  and  Taloi  and 
Pallou  and  two  native  chaps  gets  in 
and  pulls  for  the  land. 

"They  gets  inside  Uturoa  about  mid- 
night. 'Jump  out,'  says  the  Frenchman 
to  Taloi  ;  but  the  girl  wouldn't,  but 
tics  herself  up  around  Pallou  and 
squeals.  'Sakker!'  says  the  Frenchy, 
and  he  grabs  her  by  the  hair  and  tries 
to  tear  her  away.  ''Ere,  stop  that,' 
says  Pallou  ;  '  the  girl  ain't  willin','  an' 
he  pushes  Frenchy  away.  '  Sakker  ! ' 
again,  and  Frenchy  whips  out  his  pistol 
and  nearly  blows  Pallou's  face  ofFn 
him  ;  and  then,  afore  he  knows  how 
it  was  done,  Ted  sends  his  knife  home 
into  the  other  fellow's  throat.  The 
two  native  sailors  runned  away  ashore, 
and  Pallou  and  Taloi  takes  the  oars 
and  pulls  out  again  until  they  drops. 
Then  a  breeze  comes  along,  and  they 
up  stick  and  sails  away  and  gets  clear 
o'  the  group,  and  brings  up,  after  a  lot 
of  sufFerin',  at  Rurutu.    And  ever  since 


70 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

then  there's  been  a  French  gunboat 
a-lookin'  for  Pallou,  and  he's  been 
hidin'  at  Apatiki  for  nigh  on  a  twelve- 
month, and  has  come  over  here  now 
to  see  if,  when  your  ship  comes  back, 
you  can't  give  him  and  the  missus  a 
passage  away  somewhere  to  the  west- 
ward, out  o'  the  run  of  that  there 
gunboat,  the  Vaudreuil" 

I  promised  I  would  "work  it"  with 
the  captain,  and  Pallou  put  out  his 
brawny  hand — the  hand  that  "  drove 
it  home  into  Frenchy's  throat  " — and 
grasped  mine  in  silence.  Then  he 
lifted  liis  jacket  and  showed  me  his 
money-belt,  filled. 

"I  don't  want  money,"  I  said.  "If 
you  have  told  me  the  whole  story,  I 
would  help  any  man  in  such  a  fix  as 
you."  And  then  Taloi,  fresh  from 
her  bath,  came  in  and  sat  down  on 
the  mat  whilst  fat  Lucia  combed  and 
dressed  her  glossy  hair  and  placed 
therein  scarlet  hisbiscus  flowers ;  and 
to  show  her  returned  good  temper,  she 
took  from  her  lips  the  cigarette  she 
was  smoking  and  offered  it  to  the  grim 
Pallou. 

A  month  later  we  all  three  left  Ro- 
toava,and  Pallou  and  Taloi  went  ashore 


71 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

at  one  of  the  Hervey  Group,  where  I 
gave  him  charge  of  a  station  with  a 
small  stock  of  trade,  and  we  sailed 
away  eastward  to  Pitcairn  and  Easter 
Islands. 

•  •  •  • 

Pallou  did  a  good  business  and  was 
well  liked,  and  some  seven  months 
afterwards,  when  we  were  at  Maga 
Rcva,  in  the  Gambier  Group,  I  got  a 
letter  from  him.  "  Business  goes  well," 
he  wrote,  "  but  Taloi  is  ill  ;  I  think 
she  will  die.  You  will  find  ev^erything 
square,  though,  when  you  come." 

But  I  was  never  to  see  that  particu- 
lar island  again,  as  the  firm  sent 
another  vessel  in  place  of  ours  to  get 
Pallou's  produce.  When  the  captain 
and  the  supercargo  went  ashore,  a 
white  trader  met  them,  with  a  roll  of 
papers  in  his  hand. 

"  Pallou's  stock-list,"  he  said. 

"  Why,  where  is  he  ?  gone  away  ? " 

"No,  he's  here  still;  planted  along- 
side his  missus." 

"Dead!" 

"  Yes.  A  few  months  after  he 
arrived  here  that  pretty  little  wife  of 
his  died.  He  came  to  me  and  asked 
if  I  would  come  and  take  stock  with 
him.     I  said  he   seemed  in    a  bit   of 


72 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

a  hurry  to  start  stocktaking  before 
the  poor  thing  was  buried  ;  but  any- 
how, I  went,  and  we  took  stock,  and 
he  counted  his  cash  and  asked  me 
to  lock  the  place  up  if  anything 
happened  to  him.  Then  we  had  a 
drink,  and  he  bade  me  good-day  and 
said  he  was  going  to  sit  with  Taloi 
awhile  before  they  took  her  away. 
He  sent  the  native  women  out  of  the 
bedroom,  and  the  next  minute  I  heard 
a  shot.  He'd  done  it,  right  enough. 
Right  through  his  brain,  poor  chap. 
I  can  tell  you  he  thought  a  lot  of  that 
girl  of  his.  There's  the  two  graves, 
over  there  by  that  fetau  tree.  Here's 
his  stock-list  and  bag  of  cash  and  keys. 
Would  you  mind  giving  me  that  pair 
of  rubber  sea-boots  he  left  ? " 


73 


A  Basket    of    Bread- 
fruit, 


T  was  in  Steinberger's 
time.  A  trader  had  come 
up  to  Apia  in  his  boat 
from  the  end  of  Savaii, 
the  largest  of  the  Sa- 
moan  Group,  and  was 
on  his  way  home  again 
when  the  falling  tide 
caused  him  to  stop 
awhile  at  Mulinu'u 
Point,  about  two  miles 
from  Apia.  Here  he 
designed  to  smoke  and 
talk  and  drink  kava  at 
the  great  camp  with 
some  hospitable  native 
acquaintances  during 
the  rising  of  the  water. 
Soon  he  was  taking  his 


75 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

ease  on  a  soft  mat,  watching  the  bevy 
of  aua  luma  '  "  chawing  "  kava. 

Now  the  trader  lived  at  Falealupo, 
at  the  extreme  westerly  end  of  Savaii ; 
but  the  Samoans,  by  reason  of  its 
isolation  and  extremity,  have  for  ages 
called  it  by  another  name — an  un- 
printable one — and  so  some  of  the 
people  present  began  to  jest  with  the 
trader  for  living  in  such  a  place.  He 
fell  in  with  their  humour,  and  said 
that  if  those  present  would  find  him 
for  a  wife  a  girl  unseared  by  the  breath 
of  scandal  he  would  leave  Falealupo 
for  Safune,  where  he  had  bought 
land. 

"  Malie  ! "  said  an  old  dame,  with 
one  eye  and  white  hair,  "  the  papa- 
lagi^  is  inspired  to  speak  wisdom  to- 
night; for  at  Safune  grow  the  sweetest 
nuts  and  the  biggest  taro  and  bread- 
fruit ;  and,  lo  !  here  among  the  kava- 
chewers  is  a  young  maid  from  Safune 
— mine  own  grand-daughter  Salome. 
And  against  her  name  can  no  one  in 
Samoa  laugh  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand,"  and  the  old  creature,  amid 
laughter  and  cries  of  Isaf  e  le  ma  le  lo 
matua  (The  old  woman  is  without 
shame),  crept  over  to  the  trader,  and, 
•  The  local  girls.  '  Foreigner. 


76 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

with  one  skinny  hand  on  his  knee, 
gazed  steadily  into  his  face  with  her 
one  eye. 

The  trader  looked  at  the  girl — at 
Salome.  She  had,  at  her  grand- 
mother's speech,  turned  her  head 
aside,  and  taking  the  "chaw"  ot 
kava-root  from  her  pretty  mouth,  dis- 
solved into  shamefaced  tears.  The 
trader  was  a  man  of  quick  percep- 
tions, and  he  made  up  his  mind  to  do 
in  earnest  what  he  had  said  in  jest — 
this  because  of  the  tears  of  Salome, 
He  quickly  whispered  to  the  old 
woman,  "  Come  to  the  boat  before 
the  full  of  the  tide  and  we  will  talk." 

When  the  kava  was  ready  for 
drinking  the  others  present  had  for- 
gotten all  about  the  old  woman  and 
Salome,  who  had  both  crept  away 
unobserved,  and  an  hour  or  two  was 
passed  in  merriment,  for  the  trader 
was  a  man  well  liked.  Then,  when 
he  rose  and  said  to  fa,  they  begged 
him  not  to  attempt  to  pass  down  in 
his  boat  inside  the  reef,  as  he  was  sure 
to  be  fired  upon,  for  how  were  their 
people  to  tell  a  friend  from  an  enemy 
in  the  black  night  ?  But  he  smiled, 
and    said   his    boat    was    too    heavily 


77 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

laden  to  face  the  ocean  swell.  So 
they  bade  him  to  fa,  and  called  out 
manuia  oe  !  ^  as  he  lifted  the  door  of 
thatch  and  went. 

The  old  woman  awaited  him,  hold- 
ing the  girl  by  the  hand.  On  the 
ground  lay  a  basket,  strongly  tied  up. 
Salome  still  wept,  but  the  old  woman 
angrily  bade  her  cease  and  enter  the 
boat,  which  the  crew  had  now  pushed 
bow-on  to  the  beach.  The  old  woman 
lifted  the  basket  and  carefully  put  it 
on  board. 

"  Be  sure,"  she  said  to  the  crew, 
"  not  to  sit  on  it,  for  it  is  but  ripe 
breadfruit  I  am  taking  to  my  people 
in  Manono." 

"  Give  them  here  to  me,"  said  the 
trader,  and  he  put  the  basket  in  the 
stern  out  of  the  way.  The  old  woman 
came  aft,  too,  and  crouched  at  his 
feet  and  smoked  a  sului.'^  The  cool 
land-breeze  freshened  as  the  sail  was 
hoisted,  and  then  the  crew  besought 
the  trader  not  to  run  down  inside  the 
reef.  Bullets,  they  said,  if  fired  in 
plenty,  always  hit  something,  and  the 
sea  was  fairly  smooth  outside  the  reef. 

*  Bless  you  ! 

•  A  cigarette  rolled  in  dried  banana  leaf. 


78 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

And  old  Lupetea  grasped  his  hand  and 
muttered  in  his  ear,  "For  the  sake  of 
this  my  little  daughter  go  outside. 
See,  now,  I  am  old,  and  to  lie  when 
so  near  death  as  I  am  is  foolish.  Be 
warned  by  me  and  be  wise  ;  sail  out 
into  the  ocean,  and  at  daylight  we  will 
be  at  Salua  in  Manono.  Then  thou 
canst  set  my  feet  on  the  shore — I  and 
the  basket.  But  the  girl  shall  go  with 
thee.  Thou  canst  marry  her,  if  that 
be  to  thy  mind,  in  the  fashion  of  the 
papalagi,  or  take  her  fa  a  Samoa.^  Thus 
will  I  keep  faith  with  thee.  If  the 
girl  be  false,  her  neck  is  but  little  and 
thy  fingers  strong." 

Now  the  trader  thought  in  this 
wise  :  "This  is  well  for  me,  for  if  I 
get  the  girl  away  thus  quietly  from  all 
her  relations  I  will  save  much  in  pre- 
sents," and  his  heart  rejoiced,  for 
although  not  mean  he  was  a  careful 
man.  So  he  steered  his  boat  between 
the  seething  surf  that  boiled  and 
hissed  on  both  sides  of  the  boat-pas- 
sage. 

As  the  boat  sailed   past   the  misty 
line  of  cloud-capped  Upolu,  the  trader 
lifted  the  girl  up  beside  him  and  spoke 
*  Samoan  fashion. 


79 


to  her.  She  was  not  afraid  of  him, 
she  said,  for  many  had  told  her  he  was 
a  good  man,  and  not  a  ula  vale  (scamp), 
but  she  wept  because  now,  save  her 
old  grandmother,  all  her  kinsfolk  were 
dead.  Even  but  a  day  and  a  half  ago 
her  one  brother  was  killed  with  her 
cousin.  They  were  strong  men,  but 
the  bullets  were  swift,  and  so  they 
died.  And  their  heads  had  been  shown 
at  Matautu.  For  that  she  had  grieved 
and  wept  and  eaten  nothing,  and  the 
world  was  cold  to  her. 

"  Poor  little  devil  !  "  said  the  trader 
to  himself — "  hungry."  Then  he 
opened  a  locker  and  found  a  tin  of 
sardines.  Not  a  scrap  of  biscuit. 
There  was  plenty  of  biscuit,  though, 
in  the  boat,  in  fifty-pound  tins,  but  on 
these  mats  were  spread,  whereon  his 
crew  were  sleeping.  He  was  about  to 
rouse  them  when  he  remembered  the 
old  dame's  basket  of  ripe  breadfruit. 
He  laughed  and  looked  at  her.  She, 
too,  slept,  coiled  up  at  his  feet.  But 
first  he  opened  the  sardines  and  placed 
them  beside  the  girl,  and  motioned 
her  to  steer.  Her  eyes  gleamed  like 
diamonds  in  the  darkness  as  she 
answered  his  glance,  and  her  soft 
fingers     grasped     the     tiller.      Very 


80 


-i^BMOlbtiaaii 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

quickly,  then,  he  felt  among  the 
packages  aft  till  he  came  to  the 
basket. 

A  quick  stroke  of  his  knife  cut  the 
cinnet  that  lashed  the  sides  together. 
He  felt  inside.  "Only  two,  after  all, 
but  big  ones,  and  no  mistake.  Wrapped 
in  cloth,  too  !  I  wonder — Hell  and 
furies,  what's  this  ? " — as  his  fingers 
came  in  contact  with  something  that 
felt  like  a  human  eye.  Drawing  his 
hand  quickly  back,  he  fumbled  in  his 
pockets  for  a  match,  and  struck  it. 
Breadfruit  !  No.  Two  heads  with 
closed  eyes,  and  livid  lips  blue  with 
the  pallor  of  death,  showing  their 
white  teeth.  And  Salome  covered 
her  face  and  slid  down  in  the  bottom 
of  the  boat  again,  and  wept  afresh  for 
her  cousin  and  brother,  and  the  boat 
came  up  in  the  wind,  but  no  one 
awoke. 

The  trader  was  angry.  But  after 
he  had  tied  up  the  basket  again  he  put 
the  boat  on  her  course  once  more  and 
called  to  the  girl.  She  crept  close  to 
him  and  nestled  under  his  overcoat, 
for  the  morning  air  came  across  the 
sea  from  the  dew-laden  forests  and  she 
was  chilled.     Then  she  told  the  story 


8i 


of  how  her  grandma  had  begged  the 
heads  from  those  of  Malietoa's  troops 
who  had  taken  them  at  Matautu,  and 
then  gone  to  the  camp  at  Mulinu'u  in 
the  hope  of  getting  a  passage  in  some 
boat  to  Manono,  her  country,  where 
she  would  fain  bury  them.  And  that 
night  he  had  come,  and  old  Lupetea 
had  rejoiced  and  sworn  her  to  secrecy 
about  the  heads  in  the  basket.  And 
that  also  was  why  Lupetea  was  afraid 
for  the  boat  to  go  down  inside  the 
passage,  for  there  were  many  enemies 
to  be  met  with,  and  they  would  have 
shot  old  Lupetea  because  she  was  of 
Manono.  That  was  all.  Then  she 
ate  the  sardines,  and,  leaning  her  head 
against  the  trader's  bosom,  fell  asleep. 

As  the  first  note  of  the  great  grey 
pigeon  sounded  the  dawn,  the  trader's 
iDoat  sailed  softly  up  to  the  Salua 
beach,  and  old  Lupetea  rose,  and, 
bidding  the  crew  good-bye,  and  call- 
ing down  blessings  on  the  head  of  the 
good  and  clever  white  man  as  she 
rubbed  his  and  the  girl's  noses  against 
her  own,  she  grasped  her  Basket  ot 
Breadfruit  and  went  ashore.  Then 
the  trader,  with  Salome  by  his  side, 
sailed  out  again  into  the  ocean. 


82 


Rnderbys    Courtship, 


HE  two  ghastly  crea- 
tures sat  facing  each 
other  in  their  wordless 
misery  as  the  wind  died 
away  and  the  tattered 
remnants  of  the  sail 
hung  motionless  after  a 
last  faint  flutter.  The 
Thing  that  sat  aft — for 
\  surely  so  grotesquely 
horrible  a  vision  could 
not  be  a  Man — pointed 
with  hands  like  the 
talons  of  a  bird  of  prey 
to  the  purple  outline 
of  the  island  in  the 
west,  and  his  black, 
blood-baked  lips 
moved,  opened  and 
essayed   to  speak.     The  other    being 


83 


that,  with  bare  and  skinny  arms 
clasped  around  its  bony  knees,  sat 
crouched  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat, 
leaned  forward  to  listen. 

"  Ducie  Island,  Enderby,"  said  the 
first  in  a  hoarse, rattling  whisper ;  "no 
one  on  it ;  but  water  is  there  .  .  . 
and  plenty  of  birds  and  turtle,  and 
a  few  cocoanuts." 

At  the  word  "water"  the  listener 
gave  a  curious  gibbering  chuckle,  un- 
clasped his  hands  from  his  knees,  and 
crept  further  towards  the  speaker. 

"  And  the  current  is  setting  us 
down  to  it,  wind  or  no  wind.  I 
believe  we'll  see  this  pleasure-trip 
through,  after  all  " — and  the  black 
lips  parted  in  a  hideous  grimace. 

The  man  whom  he  called  Enderby 
sank  his  head  again  upon  his  knees, 
and  his  dulled  and  bloodshot  eyes 
rested  on  something  that  lay  at  the 
captain's  feet — the  figure  of  a  woman 
enveloped  from  her  shoulders  down 
in  a  ragged  native  mat.  For  some 
hours  past  she  had  lain  thus  with 
the  grey  shadows  of  coming  dis- 
solution hovering  about  her  pallid 
face,  and  only  the  faintest  movement 
of  lips  and  eyelids  to  show  that  she 
still  lived. 


84 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

The  black-whiskered  man  who 
steered  looked  down  for  a  second  upon 
the  face  beneath  him  with  the  uncon- 
cern for  others  born  of  the  agony  of 
thirst  and  despair,  and  again  his  gaunt 
face  turned  to  the  land.  Yet  she  was 
his  wife,  and  not  six  weeks  back  he 
had  experienced  a  cold  sort  of  satis- 
faction in  the  possession  of  so  much 
beauty. 

He  remembered  that  day  now. 
Enderby,  the  passenger  from  Sydney, 
and  he  were  walking  the  poop  ;  his 
wife  was  asleep  in  a  deck-chair  on 
the  other  side.  An  open  book  lay  in 
her  lap.  As  the  two  men  passed  and 
re-passed  her,  the  one  noted  that  the 
other  would  glance  in  undisguised 
and  honest  admiration  at  the  figure  in 
the  chair.  And  Enderby,  who  was  as 
open  as  the  day,  had  said  to  him, 
Langton,that  the  sleeping  Mrs.  Lang- 
ton  made  as  beautiful  a  picture  as  he 
had  ever  seen. 

The  sail  stirred,  filled  out,  and 
then  drooped  again,  and  the  two 
spectres,  with  the  sleeping  woman 
between,  still  sat  with  their  hungry 
eyes  gazing  over  toward  the  land.  As 
the  sun  sank,  the  outlines  of  the 
verdure-clad    summits    and    beetling 


clifFs  stood  forth  clearly  for  a  short 
minute  or  two,  as  if  to  mock  them 
with  hope,  and  then  became  en- 
shrouded in  the  tenebrous  night. 

Another  hour  and  a  faint  sigh  came 
from  the  ragged  mat.  Enderby,  for 
ever  on  the  watch,  had  first  seen  a 
white  hand  silhouetted  against  the 
blackness  of  the  covering,  and  knew 
that  she  was  still  alive.  And  as  he 
was  about  to  call  Langton,  who  lay  in 
the  stern-sheets  muttering  in  hideous 
dreams,  he  heard  the  woman's  voice 
calling  him.  With  panting  breath  and 
trembling  limbs  he  crawled  over  be- 
side her  and  gently  touched  her  hand. 

"Thank  God,  you  are  alive,  Mrs. 
Langton.  Shall  I  wake  Captain 
Langton  ?  We  must  be  nearing  the 
land." 

"No,  don't.  Let  him  sleep.  But  I 
called  you,  Mr.  Enderby,  to  lift  me 
up.  I  want  to  see  where  the  rain  is 
coming  from." 

Enderby  groaned  in  anguish  of 
spirit.       "  Rain  ?    God   has    forgotten 

us,   I ,"  and   then   he  stopped   in 

shame  at  betraying  his  weakness  be- 
fore a  woman. 

The  soft,  tender  tones  again — "  Ah, 


86 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

do  help  me  up,  please,  I  can  feel  the 
rain  is  near."  Then  the  man,  with 
hot  tears  of  mingled  weakness  and 
pity  coursing  down  his  cheeks,  raised 
her  up. 

"Why,  there  it  is,  Mr.  Enderby — 
and  the  land  as  well !  And  it's  a 
heavy  squall,  too,"  and  she  pointed  to 
a  moving,  inky  mass  that  half  con- 
cealed the  black  shadow  of  the  island. 
"Quick,  take  my  mat  ;  one  end  of  it 
is  tight  and  will  hold  water." 

"  Langton,  La-a-ngton  !  Here's  a 
rain  squall  coming,''  and  Enderby 
pressed  the  woman's  hand  to  his  lips 
and  kissed  it  again  and  again.  Then 
with  eager  hands  he  took  the  mat 
from  her,  and  staggering  forward  to 
the  bows  stretched  the  sound  end 
across  and  bellied  it  down.  And  then 
the  moving  mass  that  was  once  black, 
and  was  now  white,  swept  down  upon 
them    and    brought    them    life    and 

joy- 

Langton,  with  an  empty  beef-tin 
in  his  hand,  stumbled  over  his  wife's 
figure,  plunged  the  vessel  into  the 
water  and  drank  again  and  again. 

"Curse  you,  you  brute!"  shouted 
Enderby  through  the  wild  noise  of 
the   hissing   rain,  "  Where    is    your 


87 


wife  ?  Are  you  going  to  let  her  lie 
there  without  a  drink  ?  " 

Langton  answered  not,  but  drank 
once  more.  Then  Enderby,  with  an 
oath,  tore  the  tin  from  his  hand,  filled 
it  and  took  it  to  her,  holding  her  up 
while  she  drank.  And  as  her  eyes 
looked  gratefully  into  his  while  he 
placed  her  tenderly  back  in  the  stern- 
sheets,  the  madness  of  a  moment  over- 
powered him,  and  he  kissed  her  on 
the  lips. 

Concerned  only  with  the  nectar  in 
the  mat,  Langton  took  no  regard  of 
Enderby  as  he  opened  the  little  locker, 
pulled  out  a  coarse  dungaree  jumper 
and  wrapped  it  round  the  thinly-clad 
and  drenched  figure  of  the  woman. 

She  was  weeping  now,  partly  from 
the  joy  of  knowing  that  she  was  not 
to  die  of  the  agonies  of  thirst  in  an 
open  boat  in  mid-Pacific  and  partly 
because  the  water  had  given  her 
strength  to  remember  that  Langton 
had  cursed  her  when  he  had  stumbled 
over  her  to  get  at  the  water  in  the 
mat. 

She  had  married  him  because  of  his 
handsome   face  and  dashing    manner 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

for  one  reason,  and  because  her 
Scotch  father,  also  a  Sydney-Tahitian 
trading  captain,  had  pointed  out  to  her 
that  Langton  had  made  and  was  still 
making  money  in  the  island  trade. 
Her  ideal  of  a  happy  life  was  to  have 
her  husband  leave  the  sea  and  buy 
an  estate  either  in  Tahiti  or  Chili. 
She  knew  both  countries  well  :  the 
first  was  her  birthplace,  and  between 
there  and  Valparaiso  and  Sydney  her 
money-grubbing  old  father  had  traded 
for  years,  always  carrying  with  him 
his  one  daughter,  whose  beauty  the 
old  man  regarded  as  a  "  vara  guid 
thing"  and  likely  to  procure  him  a 
"  weel-to-do  mon  "  for  a  son-in-law. 

Mrs.  Langton  cared  for  her  husband 
in  a  prosaic  sort  of  way,  but  she  knew 
no  more  of  his  inner  nature  and  latent 
utter  selfishness  a  year  after  her 
marriage  than  she  had  known  a  year 
before.  Yet,  because  of  the  strain 
of  dark  blood  in  her  veins- — her 
mother  was  a  Tahitian  half-caste — she 
felt  the  mastery  of  his  savage  resolu- 
tion in  the  face  of  danger  in  the 
thirteen  days  of  horror  that  had 
elapsed  since  the  brigantine  crashed 
on  an  uncharted  reef  between  Pit- 
cairn    and    Ducie    Islands,    and    the 


8q 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

Other  boat  had  parted  company  with 
them,  taking  most  of  the  provisions 
and  water.  And  to  hard,  callous 
natures  such  as  Langton's,  women 
yield  easily  and  admire — which  is 
better  than  loving,  for  both. 

But  that  savage  curse  still  sounded 
in  her  ears,  and  unconsciously  made 
her  think  of  Enderby,  who  had  always, 
ever  since  the  eighth  day  in  the  boat, 
given  her  half  his  share  of  water. 
Little  did  she  know  the  agony  it  cost 
him  the  day  before,  when  the  water 
had  given  out,  to  bring  her  the  whole 
of  his  allowance.  And  as  she  drank, 
the  man's  heart  had  beaten  with  a 
dull  sense  of  pity,  the  while  his  baser 
nature  called  out,  "  Fool  !  it  is  his 
place,  not  yours,  to  suffer  for  her." 

At  daylight  the  boat  was  close  in  to 
the  land,  and  Langton,  in  his  cool, 
cynical  fashion,  told  his  wife  and 
Enderby  to  finish  up  the  last  of  the 
meat  and  biscuit — for  if  they  capsized 
getting  through  into  the  lagoon,  he 
said,  they  would  never  want  any 
more.  He  had  eaten  all  he  wanted 
unknown  to  the  others,  and  looked 
with  an  unmoved  face  at  Enderby, 
soaking  some  biscuit  in  the  tin  for  his 


90 


BY     REEF    AND    PALM. 

wife.  Then,  with  the  ragged  sail 
fluttering  to  the  wind,  Langton  headed 
the  boat  through  the  passage  into  the 
glassy  waters  of  the  lagoon,  and  the 
two  tottering  men,  leading  the  woman 
between  them,  sought  the  shelter  of  a 
thicket  scrub,  impenetrable  to  the  rays 
of  the  sun,  and  slept. 

And  then  for  a  week  Enderby  went 
and  scoured  the  reefs  for  food  for 
her. 

•  •  •  • 

One  day  at  noon  Enderby  awoke. 
The  woman  still  slept  heavily,  the 
first  sign  of  returning  strength  show- 
ing as  a  faint  tinge  in  the  pallor 
of  her  cheek.  Langton  was  gone. 
A  sudden  chill  passed  over  him — had 
Langton  taken  the  boat  and  left  them 
to  die  on  lonely  Ducie  ?  With  hasty 
step  Enderby  hurried  to  the  beach. 
The  boat  was  there,  safe.  And  at  the 
farther  end  of  the  beach  he  saw 
Langton,  sitting  on  the  sand,  eating. 

"Selfish  brute!"  muttered  En- 
derby. "I  wonder  what  he's  got?" 
Just  then  he  saw,  close  overhead,  a 
huge  ripe  pandanus,  and,  picking  up  a 
heavy,  flat  piece  of  coral,  he  tried  to 
ascend  the  triplicated  bole  of  the 
tree   and   hammer   ofi^    some   of  the 


91 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

fruit.  Langton  looked  up  at  him,  and 
showed  his  white  teeth  in  a  mocking 
smile  at  the  futile  effort.  Enderby 
walked  over  to  him,  stone  in  hand. 
He  was  not  a  vindictive  man,  but  he 
had  grown  to  hate  Langton  fiercely 
during  the  past  week  for  his  selfish 
neglect  of  his  wife.  And  here  was 
the  fellow  gorging  himself  on  turtle- 
eggs,  and  his  tender,  delicate  wife 
living  on  shellfish  and  pandanus. 

"Langton,"  he  said,  speaking  thickly 
and  pretending  not  to  notice  the  re- 
mainder of  the  eggs,  "  the  tide  is  out, 
and  we  may  get  a  turtle  in  one  of  the 
pools  if  you  come  with  me.  Mrs. 
Langton  needs  something  better  than 
that  infernal  pandanus  fruit.  Her 
lips  are  quite  sore  and  bleeding  from 
eating  it." 

The  Inner  Nature  came  out. 
"Are  they  ?  My  wife's  lips  seem  to 
give  you  a  very  great  deal  of  concern. 
She    has    not    said    anything    to   me. 

And  I  have  an  idea  " the  look  in 

Enderby's  face  shamed  into  silence 
the  slander  he  was  about  to  utter. 
Then  he  added  coolly — "But  as  for 
going  with  you  after  a  turtle,  thanks, 
I  won't.     I've  found  a  nest  here  and 


92 


BV    REEF    AND    PALM. 

have  had  a  good  square  feed.  It'  the 
raan-o'-war  hawks  and  boobies  hadn't 
been  here  before  me  I'd  have  got  the 
whole  lot."  Then  he  tore  the  skin 
off  another  egg  with  his  teeth. 

With  a  curious  guttural  voice 
Enderby  asked — "  How  many  eggs 
were  left  ?" 

"  Thirty  or  so — perhaps  forty." 

"And  you  have  eaten  all  but 
those  ?  " — pointing  with  savage  con- 
tempt to  five  of  the  round,  white 
balls  ;  "  give  me  those  for  your  wife." 

"  My  dear  man,  Louise  has  too 
much  Island  blood  in  her  not  to  be 
able  to  do  better  than  I — or  you — in 
a  case  like  ours.  And  as  you  have 
kindly  constituted  yourself  her  provi- 
dore,  you  had  better  go  and  look  for  a 
nest  yourself." 

"  You  dog  !  " — and  the  sharp-edged 
coral  stone  crashed  into  his  brain. 

When  Enderby  returned,  he  found 
Mrs.  Langton  sitting  up  on  the 
creeper-covered  mound  that  over- 
looked the  beach  where  he  had  left 
Langton. 

"  Come  away  from  here,"  he  said, 
"  into  the  shade.  I  have  found  a  few 
turtle  eggs." 


93 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

They  walked  back  a  little  and  sat 
down.  But  for  the  wild  riot  in  his 
brain,  Enderby  would  have  noted  that 
every  vestige  of  colour  had  left  her 
face. 

"  You  must  be  hungry,"  he  thought 
he  was  saying  to  her,  and  he  placed 
the  white  objects  in  her  lap. 

She  turned  them  slowly  over  and 
over  in  her  hands  and  then  dropped 
them  with  a  shudder.  Some  were 
flecked  with  red, 

"For  God's  sake,"  the  man  cried, 
"  tell  me  what  you  know  !  " 
"I  saw  it  all,"  she  answered. 

"  I   swear  to  you,   Mrs.  Lan " 

(the  name  stuck  in  his  throat)  "  I 
never  meant  it.  As  God  is  my 
witness,  I  swear  it.  If  we  ever  escape 
from  here  I  will  give  myself  up  to 
justice  as  a  murderer." 

The  woman,  with  hands  spread  over 
her  face,  shook  her  head  from  side  to 
side  and  sobbed.  Then  she  spoke. 
"I  loved  him  once.  .  .  .  Yet  it  was 
for  me  .  .  .  and  you  saved  my  life 
over  and  over  again  in  the  boat.  All 
sinners  are  forgiven,  we  are  told.  .  .  . 
Why  should  not  you  be,  .  .  .  and  it 
was  for  me  you  did  it.  And  I  won't 
let  you  give  yourself  up  to  justice  or 


94 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

any  one,    I'll  say  he  died  in  the  boat." 
And  then  the  laughter  of  hysterics. 

When,  some  months  later,  the 
Josephine,  whaler,  of  New  London, 
picked  them  up  on  her  way  to  Japan, 
via  the  Carolines  and  Pelews,  the 
captain  satisfactorily  answered  the 
query  made  by  Enderby  if  he  could 
marry  them.  He  "  rayther  thought 
he  could.  A  man  who  was  used  ter 
ketchih' and  killin' whales,  the  power- 
fullest  creature  of  Almighty  Gawd's 
creation,  was  ekal  to  marryin'  a  pair 
of  unfortunit  human  beans  in  sich  a 
pre-carus  situation  as  theirs." 

And,  by  the  irony  of  fate,  the 
Enderbys  (that  isn't  their  name)  are 
now  living  in  a  group  of  islands  where 
there's  quite  a  trade  done  in  turtle, 
and  whenever  a  ship's  captain  comes 
to  dine  with  them  they  never  have  the 
local  dish — turtle  eggs — for  dinner. 
"We  see  them  so  often,"  Enderby 
explains,  "  and  my  wife  is  quite  tired 
of  them." 


95 


Long    Charley  s     Good 
Little  Wife. 


HERE  was  the  island, 
only  ten  miles  away, 
and  there  it  had  been 
for  a  whole  week. 
Sometimes  we  had  got 
near  enough  to  see  Long 
Charley's  house  and  the 
figures  of  natives  walk- 
ing on  the  yellow  beach; 
and  then  the  westerly 
current  would  take  us 
away  to  leeward  again. 
But  that  night  a  squall 
came  up,  and  in  half  an. 
hour  we  were  running 
down  to  the  land. 
When  the  lights  on  the 
beach  showed  up  we 
hove-to  until  daylight. 


97 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM, 

and  then  found  the  surf  too  heavy  to 
let  us  land. 

We  got  in  close  to  the  reef,  and 
could  see  that  the  trader's  copra-house 
was  full,  for  there  were  also  hundreds 
of  bags  outside,  awaiting  our  boats. 
It  was  clearly  worth  staying  for.  The 
trader,  a  tall,  thin,  pyjama-clad  man, 
came  down  to  the  water's  edge,  waved 
his  long  arm,  and  then  turned  back 
and  sat  down  on  a  bag  of  copra.  We 
went  about  and  passed  the  village 
again,  and  once  more  the  long  man 
came  to  the  water's  edge,  waved  his 
arm,  and  retired  to  his  seat. 

In  the  afternoon  we  saw  a  native 
and  Charley  together  among  the  bags  ; 
then  the  native  left  him,  and,  as  it 
was  now  low  tide,  the  kanaka  was  able 
to  walk  to  the  edge  of  the  reef,  where 
he  signalled  to  us.  Seeing  that  he 
meant  to  swim  off,  the  skipper  went 
in  as  close  as  possible,  and  backed  his 
fore-yard.  Watching  his  chance  for 
a  lull  in  the  yet  fierce  breakers,  the 
native  slid  over  the  reef  and  swam  out 
to  us  as  only  a  Line  Islander  or  a 
Tokelau  man  can  swim. 

"  How's  Charley  ? "  we  asked,  when 
the  dark  man  reached  the  deck. 


98 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

"Who?  Charley?  Oh  he  fine, 
plenty  copra.  Tapa  !  my  bowels  are 
filled  with  the  sea — for  one  dollar  ! 
Here  ariki  vaka  (captain)  and  you  tuhi 
tuhi  (supercargo),"  said  the  native, 
removing  from  his  perforated  and 
pendulous  ear-lobe  a  little  roll  of  leaf, 
"take  this  letter  from  the  mean  one 
that  giveth  but  a  dollar  for  facing  such 
a  gain  (surf).  Hast  plenty  tobacco  on 
board,  friends  of  my  heart  ?  Apa, 
the  surf!  Not  a  canoe  crew  could 
the  white  man  get  to  face  it.  Is  it 
good  twist  tobacco,  friends,  or  the  flat 
cakes  ?  Know  that  I  am  a  man  of 
Nanomea,  not  one  of  these  dog-eating 
people  here,  and  a  strong  swimmer  ; 
else  the  letter  had  not  come." 

The  supercargo  took  the  note.  It 
was  rolled  up  in  many  thicknesses  of 
banana-leaf,  which  had  kept  it  dry  : — 

"Dear  Friends, — I  have  Been  wait- 
ing for  you  for  near  5  months.  I  am 
Chock  full  of  Cobberah  and  Shark 
Fins  one  Ton.  I  am  near  Starved 
Out,  No  Biscit,  no  Beef,  no  flour,  not 
Enything  to  Eat.  for  god's  Saik  send 
me  a  case  of  Gin  ashore  if  you  Don't 
mean  to  Hang  on  till  the  sea  goes 
Down.     Not  a  Woman   comes  Near 


99 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

me  because  I  am  Run  out  of  Traid  so 
please  try  also  to  Send  a  Peece  of 
Good  print  as  there  are  some  fine 
Women  here  from  Nukunau  and  I 
think  I  can  get  one  for  a  wife  if  I  am 
smart.  If  you  Can't  take  my  Cobberah 
and  mean  to  Go  away  send  the  Squair 
face  '  for  god's  saik  and  something  for 
the  Woman. — Your  obliged  Friend, 
Charles." 

Wc  parcelled  a  bottle  of  gin  round 
with  a  small  coir  line,  and  sent  it 
ashore  by  the  Nanomea  man.  Charley 
and  a  number  of  natives  came  to  the 
edge  of  the  reef  to  lend  a  hand  in 
landing  the  bearer  of  the  treasure. 
Then  they  all  waded  back  to  the 
beach,  headed  by  the  white  man  in 
the  dirty  pyjamas  and  sodden-looking 
fala  hat.  Reaching  his  house  he 
turned  his  following  away  and  shut 
the  door. 

"  I  bet  a  dollar  he  wouldn't  swap 
billets  with  the  angel  Gabriel  at  this 
partikler  moment,"  said  the  profane 
mate,  thoughtfully. 

We  started  weighing  and  shipping 
the  copra  next  day.     After  finishing 
'  Square-face  =  Hollands  gin. 


100 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

up,  the  solemn  Charley  invited  the 
skipper  and  supercargo  to  remain 
ashore  till  morning.  His  great  trouble, 
he  told  us,  was  that  he  had  not  yet 
secured  a  wife,  "a  reg'lar  wife, 
y'know."  He  had,  unluckily,  "lost 
the  run  "  of  the  last  Mrs.  Charley 
during  his  absence  at  another  island 
of  the  group,  and  negotiations  with 
various  local  young  women  had  been 
broken  off  owing  to  his  having  run 
out  of  trade.  In  the  South  Seas,  as 
in  Australia  and  elsewhere,  to  get  the 
girl  of  your  heart  is  generally  a  mere 
matter  of  trade.  There  were,  he  told 
us  with  a  melancholy  look,  "some  fine 
Nukunau  girls  here  on  a  visit,  but  the 
one  I  want  don't  seem  to  care  much 
about  stayin',  unless  all  this  new  trade 
fetches  her." 

"  Who  is  she  ? "  inquired  the 
skipper. 

"  Tibakwa's  daughter." 

"Let's  have  a  look  at  her,"  said  the 
skipper,  a  man  of  kind  impulses,  who 
felt  sorry  at  the  intermittency  of  the 
Long  One's  connubial  relations. 

The  tall,  scraggy  trader  shambled 
to  the  door  and  bawled  out  "  Tibakwa, 
Tibakwa,  Tibakwa,  O  ! "  three  times. 

The    people,    singing    in    the    big 


lOI 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

moniep  or  town-house,  stopped  their 
monotonous  droning,  and  the  name  of 
Tibakwa  was  yelled  vociferously 
throughout  the  village  in  true  Gilbert 
Group  style.  In  the  Gilberts,  if  a 
native  in  one  corner  of  a  house  speaks  ' 
to  another  in  the  opposite  he  bawls 
loud  enough  to  be  heard  a  mile  off. 

Tibakwa  (The  Shark)  was  a  short, 
squat  fellow  with  his  broad  back  and 
chest  scored  and  seamed  with  an 
intricate  and  inartistic  network  of 
cicatrices  made  by  shark's-teeth 
swords.  His  hair,  straight,  coarse 
and  jet-black,  was  cut  away  square 
from  just  above  his  eyebrows  to  the 
top  of  his  ears,  leaving  his  fierce 
countenance  in  a  sort  of  frame.  Each 
ear-lobe  bore  a  load — one  had  two  or 
three  sticks  of  tobacco,  twined  in  and 
about  the  distended  circle  of  flesh, 
and  the  other  a  clasp-knife  and  wooden 
pipe.  Stripped  to  the  waist  he  showed 
his  muscular  outlines  to  perfection, 
and  he  sat  down  unasked  in  the  bold, 
self-confident,  half-defiant  manner 
natural  to  the  Line  Islander. 

"Where's  Tirau  ? "  asked  the 
trader. 


102 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

"Here,"  said  the  man  of  vvounds, 
pointing  outside,  and  he  called  out  in 
a  voice  like  the  bellow  of  a  bull — 
"  Tirau  0,  nako  mai!"  (Come  here  !) 

Tirau  came  in  timidly,  clothed  only 
in  a  ridi  or  girdle,  and  slunk  into  a 
far  corner. 

The  melancholy  trader  and  the 
father  pulled  her  out,  and  she  dumped 
herself  down  in  the  middle  of  the 
room  with  a  muttered  "  E  pudkdka  te 
matan  !  "  (Bad  white  man). 

"Fine  girl,  Charley,"  said  the 
skipper,  digging  him  in  the  ribs. 
"  Ought  to  suit  you,  eh  !  Make  a  good 
little  wife." 

Negotiations  commenced  anew. 
Father  willing  to  part,  girl  frightened 
— commenced  to  cry.  The  astute 
Charley  brought  out  some  new  trade. 
Tirau's  eye  here  displayed  a  faint 
interest.  Charley  threw  her,  with  the 
air  of  a  prince,  a  whole  piece  of 
turkey  twill,  12  yards — value  three 
dollars,  cost  about  2S.  3d.  Tirau  put 
out  a  little  hand  and  drew  it  gingerly 
toward  her.  Tibakwa  gave  us  an 
atrocious  wink. 

"  She's  cottoned  !  "  exclaimed 
Charley. 


103 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 


And  thus,  without  empty  and  hollow 
display,  were  two  loving  hearts  made 
to  beat  as  one.  As  a  practical  proof 
of  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion,  the 
bridegroom  then  and  there  gave  Tirau 
his  bunch  of  keys,  which  she  carefully- 
tied  to  a  strand  of  her  ridi,  and, 
smoking  one  of  the  captain's  Manillas, 
she  proceeded  to  bash  out  the  mosqui- 
toes from  the  nuptial  couch  with  a 
fan.  We  assisted  her,  an  hour  after- 
wards, to  hoist  the  sleeping  body  of 
Long  Charley  therein,  and  telling  her 
to  bathe  his  head  in  the  morning  with 
cold  water  we  rose  to  go. 

"  Good-bye,  Tirau  !  "  we  said. 

"  Tiakapo"  ^  said  the  Good  Little 
Wife,  as  she  rolled  up  an  empty 
square  gin  bottle  in  one  of  Charley's 
shirts  for  a  pillow,  and  disposed  her 
graceful  figure  on  the  floor  mats, 
beside  his  bed,  to  fight  mosquitoes 
until  daylight. 

»  "Good-night." 


104 


The     Methodical     Mr. 
Burr    of  Majuru. 


NE  day  Ned  Burr,  a 
fellow  trader,  walked 
slowly  up  the  path  to 
my  station,  and  with  a 
friendly  nod  sat  down 
and  watched  intently 
as,  with  native  assist- 
ance, I  set  about  salt- 
ing some  pork.  Ned 
lived  thirty  miles  from 
my  place,  on  a  little 
island  at  the  entrance 
to  the  lagoon.  He  was 
a  prosperous  man,  and 
only  drank  under  the 
pressure  of  the  mono- 
caused  by  the  non-arrival  of  a 
to  buy  his  produce.     He  would 


tony 
ship 


lO: 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

then  close  his  store,  and,  aided  by  a 
number  of  friendly  male  natives,  start 
on  a  case  of  gin.  But  never  a  woman 
went  into  Ned's  house,  though  many 
visited  the  store,  where  Ned  bought 
their  produce,  paid  for  it  in  trade  or. 
cash,  and  sent  them  off,  after  treating 
them  on  a  strictly  business  basis. 


Now  the  Marshall  Island  women 
much  resented  this.  Since  Ned's  wife 
had  died,  ten  years  previously,  the 
women,  backed  by  the  chiefs,  had 
made  most  decided,  but  withal  diplo- 
matic, assaults  upon  his  celibacy.  The 
old  men  had  respectfully  reminded 
him  that  his  state  of  singleness  was  a 
direct  slight  to  themselves  as  leading 
men.  If  he  refused  to  marry  again 
he  surely  would  not  cast  such  a  reflec- 
tion upon  the  personal  characters  of 
some  two  or  three  hundred  young 
girls  as  to  refuse  a  few  of  them  the 
position  of  honorary  wives  pro  tem.y 
or  until  he  found  one  whom  he 
might  think  worthy  of  higher  honours. 
But  the  slow-thinking,  methodical 
trader  only  opened  a  bottle  of  gin, 
gave  them  fair  words  and  a  drink  all 
round,    and    absolutely    declined     to 


1 06 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

open  any  sort  of  matrimonial  negotia- 
tions. 

•  •  •  • 

"  I'm  come  to  hev  some  talk  with 
you  when  you've  finished  saltin',"  he 
said,  as  he  rose  and  meditatively 
prodded  a  junk  of  meat  with  his  fore- 
finger, 

"Right,  old  man,"  I  said.  "Ill 
come  now,"  and  we  went  into  the  big 
room  and  sat  down. 

"  Air  ye  game  ter  come  and  see  me 
get  married  ?  "  he  asked,  looking  away 
past  me,  through  the  open  door,  to 
where  the  surf  thundered  and  tumbled 
on  the  outer  reef. 

"  Ned,"  I  said,  solemnly,  "  I  know 
you  don't  joke,  so  you  must  mean  it. 
Of  course  I  will.  I'm  sure  all  of  us 
fellows  will  be  delighted  to  hear  you're 
going  to  get  some  nice  little  carajz.^  to 
lighten  up  that  big  house  of  yours 
over  there.     Who's  the  girl,  Ned  ? " 

"  Le-jennabon." 

"  Whew  !  "  I  said,  "  why,  she's  the 
daughter  of  the  biggest  chief  on 
Arhnu.  I  didn't  think  any  white 
man  could  get  her,  even  if  he  gave 
her  people  a  boat-load  of  dollars  as  a 
wedding-gift." 

'  An  unmarried  girl. 


107 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

"Well,  no,"  said  Ned,  stroking  his 
beard  meditatively,  "  I  suppose  I 
should  feel  a  bit  set  up  ;  but  two  years 
ago  her  people  said  that,  because  I 
stood  to  them  in  the  matter  of  some 
rifles  when  they  had  trouble  with  King 
Jibberick,  I  could  take  her.  She  was 
rather  young  then,  any  way,  but  I've 
been  over  to  Arhnu  several  times,  and 
I've  had  spies  out,  and  damn  me  if  I 
ever  could  hear  a  whisper  against  her. 
I'm  told  for  sure  that  her  father  and 
uncles  would  ha'  killed  any  one  that 
came  after  her.  So  I'm  a-goin'  to 
take  her  and  chance  it." 

"Ned,"  I  said,  "you  know  your 
own  affairs  and  these  people  better 
than  I  do.  Yet  are  you  really  going  to 
pin  your  faith  on  a  Marshall  Island 
girl  ?  You  are  not  like  any  of  us 
traders.  You  see,  we  know  what  to 
expect  sometimes,  and  our  morals  are 
a  lot  worse  than  those  of  the  natives. 
And  it  doesn't  harrow  our  feelings 
much  if  any  one  of  us  has  to  divorce 
a  wife  and  get  another  ;  it  only  means 
a  lot  of  new  dresses  and  some  guzz- 
ling, drinking,  and  speechifying,  and 
some  bother  in  teaching  the  new  wife 
how  to  make  bread.  But  your  wife 
that  died  was  a  Manhikian — another 


1 08 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

kind.  They  don't  breed  that  sort 
here  in  the  Marshalls.  Think  of  it 
twice,  Ned,  before  you  marry  her," 

The  girl  was  a  beauty.  There  are 
many  like  her  in  that  far-away  cluster 
of  coral  atolls.  That  she  was  a  chiefs 
child  it  was  easy  to  see  ;  the  abject 
manner  in  which  the  commoner 
natives  always  behaved  themselves  in 
her  presence  showed  their  respect  for 
Le-jennabon.  Of  course  we  all  got 
very  jolly.  There  were  half  a  dozen 
of  us  traders  there,  and  we  were,  for 
a  wonder,  all  on  friendly  terms.  Le- 
jennabon  sat  on  a  fine  mat  in  the  big 
room,  and  in  a  sweetly  dignified  man- 
ner received  the  wedding  gifts.  One 
of  our  number,  Charlie  de  Buis, 
though  in  a  state  of  chronic  poverty, 
induced  by  steadfast  adherence  to 
square  gin  at  five  dollars  a  case,  made 
his  offerings — a  gold  locket  covering  a 
woman's  miniature,  a  heavy  gold  ring, 
and  a  pair  of  fat  cross-bred  Muscovy 
ducks.  The  bride  accepted  them  with 
a  smile. 

"  Who  is  this  ?  "  she  asked,  looking 
at  the  portrait — "  your  white  wife  ?  " 

"No,"  replied  the  bashful  Charles, 
"another  man's.     That's  why  I  give 


109 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

it  away,  curse  her.     But  the  ducks  I 
bred  myself  on  Majuru." 

A  month  or  two  passed.  Then,  on 
one  Sunday  afternoon,  about  dusk,  I 
saw  Ned's  whale-boat  coming  over, 
across  the  lagoon.  I  met  him  on  the 
beach.  Trouble  was  in  his  face,  yet 
his  hard,  impassive  features  were  such 
that  only  those  who  knew  him  well 
could  discover  it.  Instead  of  entering 
the  house  he  silently  motioned  me  to 
come  further  along  the  sand,  where 
we  reached  an  open  spot  clear  of 
cocoanuts.  Ned  sat  down  and  filled 
his  pipe.  I  waited  patiently.  The 
wind  had  died  away,  and  the  soft 
swish  and  swirl  of  the  tide  as  the 
ripples  lapped  the  beach  was  the  only 
sound  that  broke  upon  the  silence  of 
the  night. 

*'  You  were  right.  But  it  doesn't 
matter  now.  .  .  ."  He  laughed  softly. 
"A  week  ago  a  canoe-party  arrived 
from  Ebon.  There  were  two  chiefs. 
Of  course  they  came  to  my  house  to 
trade.  They  had  plenty  of  money. 
There  were  about  a  hundred  natives 
belonging  to  them.  The  younger 
man    was    chief   of    Likieb — a    flash 


IIO 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

buck.  The  first  day  he  saw  Le- 
jennabon  he  had  a  lot  too  much  to 
say  to  her.  I  watched  him.  Next 
morning  my  toddy-cutter  came  and 
told  me  that  the  flash  young  chief 
from  Likieb  had  stuck  him  up  and 
drunk  my  toddy,  and  had  said  some- 
thing about  my  wife — you  know  how 
they  talk  in  parables  when  they  mean 
mischief.  I  would  have  shot  him  for 
the  toddy  racket,  but  I  was  waitin'  for 
a  better  reason.  .  .  .  The  old  hag  who 
bosses  my  cook-shed  said  to  me  as  she 
passed,  '  Go  and  listen  to  a  song  of 
cunning  over  there' — pointing  to  a 
clump  of  breadfruit  trees.  I  walked 
over — quietly.  Le-jennabon  and  her 
girls  were  sitting  down  on  mats.  Out- 
side the  fence  was  a  lad  singing  this — 
in  a  low  voice — 

"  'Marriage  hides  the  tricks  of  lovers.' 

Le-jennabon  and  the  girls  bent  their 
heads  and  said  nothing.  Then  the 
devil's  imp  commenced  again — 

•"Marriage  hides  the  tricks  of  lovers." 

Some  of  the  girls  laughed  and  whis- 
pered to  Le-jennabon.  She  shook 
her  head,  and  looked  around  timo- 
rously.     Plain     enough,    wasn't    it  ? 


II  r 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

Presently  the  boy  crept  up  to  the 
fence,  and  dropped  over  a  wreath  of 
yellow  blossoms.  The  girls  laughed. 
One  of  them  picked  it  up,  and  offered 
it  to  Le-jennabon.  She  waved  it 
away.  Then,  again,  the  cub  outside 
sang  softly — 

"  ♦  Marriage  hides  the  tricks  of  lovers,' 

and  they  all  laughed  again,  and  Le- 
jennabon  put  the  wreath  on  her  head, 
and  I  saw  the  brown  hide  of  the  boy 
disappear  among  the  trees. 

"  I  went  back  to  the  house.  I 
wanted  to  make  certain  she  would 
follow  the  boy  first.  After  a  few 
minutes  some  of  Le-jennabon's  women 
came  to  me,  and  said  they  were  going 
to  the  weather  side — it's  narrer  across, 
as  you  know — to  pick  flowers.  I  said 
all  right,  to  go,  as  I  was  going  to  do 
something  else,  so  couldn't  come. 
Then  I  went  to  the  trade-room  and 
got  what  I  wanted.  The  old  cook- 
hag  showed  me  the  way  they  had 
gone,  and  grinned  when  she  saw  what 
I  had  slid  down  inside  my  pyjamas. 
1  cut  round  and  got  to  the  place.  I 
had  a  right  good  idea  where  it  was. 


112 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

The  girls  soon  came  along  the  path, 
and  then  stopped  and  talked  to  Le- 
jennabon  and  pointed  to  a  clump  of 
bread-fruit-trees  standing  in  an  arrow- 
rootpatch.  She  seemed  frightened — but 
went.  Half-way  through  she  stopped, 
and  then  I  saw  my  beauty  raise  his 
head  from  the  ground  and  march  over 
to  her.  I  jest  giv'  him  time  ter  enjoy 
a  smile,  and  then  I  stepped  out  and 
toppled  him  over.  Right  through  his 
carcase — them  Sharp's  rifles  make  a 
hole  you  could  put  your  fist  into. 

"  The  girl  dropped  too — sheer  funk. 
Old  Lebauro,  the  cook,  slid  through 
the  trees  and  stood  over  him,  and  said, 
•  U,  guk !  He's  a  fine-made  man,' 
and  gave  me  her  knife  ;  and  then  I 
collared  Le-jennabon  and " 

"  For  God's  sake,  Ned,  don't  tell  me 
you  killed  her  too  !  " 

He  shook  his  head  slowly. 

"  No,  I  couldn't  hurt  her.  But  I 
held  her  with  one  hand,  she  feeling 
dead  and  cold,  like  a  wet  deck-swab  ; 
then  the  old  cook-woman  undid  my 
flash  man's  long  hair,  and,  twining  her 
skinny  old  claws  in  it,  pulled  it  taut, 
while  I  sawed  at  the  chap's  neck  with 
my  right  hand.  The  knife  was  heavy 
and   sharp,    and  I   soon    got   the  job 


113 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

through.  Then  I  gave  the  thing  to 
Le-jennabon  to  carry. 

"  I  made  her  walk  in  front  of  me. 
Every  time  she  dropped  the  head  I 
slewed  her  round  and  made  her  lift  it ' 
up  again.  And  the  old  cook-devil 
trotted  astern  o'  us.  When  we  came 
close  to  the  town  I  says  to  Le-jenna- 
bon : 

"  '  Do  you  want  to  live  ? ' 

" '  Yes/  says  she,  in  a  voice  like  a 
whisper. 

"'  Then  sing,'  says  I,  '  sing  loud — 

'"  Marriage  hides  the  tricks  of  lovers," 

And  she  sang  it  in  a  choky  kind  of 
quaver. 

"  There  was  a  great  rush  o'  people 
ter  see  the  procession.  They  stood  in 
a  line  on  both  sides  of  the  path  and 
stared  and  said  nothin'. 

"  Presently  we  comes  to  where  all 
the  Likieb  chief's  people  was  quar- 
tered. They  knew  the  head  and  ran 
back  for  their  rifles,  but  my  crowd  in 
the  village  was  too  strong,  and,  o' 
course,  sided  with  me,  and  took  away 
their  guns.  Then  the  crowd  gathers 
round    my  place,   and    I    makes    Le- 


114 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

jennabon  hold  up  the  head  and  sing 
again — sing  that  devil's  chant. 

"'Listen,'  I  says  to  the  people, 
'listen  to  my  wife  singing  a  love-song.* 
Then  I  takes  the  thing,  wet  and 
bloody,  and  slings  it  into  the  middle 
of  the  Likieb  people,  and  gave  Le- 
jennabon  a  shove  and  sent  her  in- 
side." 

I  was  thinking  what  would  be  the 
best  thing  to  say,  and  could  only 
manage  "It's  a  bad  business,  Ned." 

"  Bad  !  That's  where  you're 
wrong,"  and,  rising,  Ned  brushed  the 
sand  off  the  legs  of  his  pyjamas.  "It's 
just  about  the  luckiest  thing  as  could 
ha'  happened.  Ye  see,  it's  given  Le- 
jennabon  a  good  idea  of  what  may 
happen  to  her  if  she  ain't  mighty  cor- 
rect. An'  it's  riz  me  a  lot  in  the 
esteem  of  the  people  generally  as  a 
man  who  hez  business  principles." 


115 


A  Truly  Great   Man. 


A    MID-PACIFIC    SKETCH. 


HEN  the  flag  of 
"Bobby"  Towns,  of 
Sydney,  was  still 
mighty  in  the  South 
Seas.  The  days  had 
not  come  in  which 
steamers  with  brass- 
bound  supercargoes, 
carrying  tin  boxes  and 
taking  orders,  like  mer- 
chants' bagmen,  for 
goods  "  to  arrive,"  ex- 
ploited the  Ellice, 
Kingsmill,  and  Gilbert 
Groups.  BlufF-bowed 
old  wave-punchers  like 
the  Spec,  the  Z^^y 
Alicia,  and  the  E.  K. 
Bateson  plunged    their 


117 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM 

clumsy  hulls  into  the  rolling  swell  of 
the  mid-Pacific,  carrying  their  "  trade  " 
of  knives,  axes,  guns,  bad  rum,  and 
good  tobacco,  instead  of,  as  now,  white 
umbrellas,  paper  boots  and  shoes, 
German  sewing-machines  and  fancy 
prints — " zephyrs," the  smartly-dressed 
supercargo  calls  them,  as  he  submits  a 
card  of  patterns  to  Emilia,  the  native- 
teacher's  wife,  who,  as  the  first  Lady 
in  the  Land,  must  have  first  choice. 

In  those  days  the  sleek  native 
missionary  was  an  unknown  quantity 
in  the  Tokelaus  and  Kingsmills,  and 
the  local  white  trader  answered  all 
requirements.  He  was  generally  a 
rough  character — a  runaway  from 
some  Australian  or  American  whaler, 
or  a  wandering  Ishmael  who,  for 
reasons  of  his  own,  preferred  living 
among  the  intractable,  bawling,  and 
poverty-stricken  people  of  the  equa- 
torial Pacific  to  dreaming  away  his  days 
in  the  monotonously  happy  valleys  of 
the  Society  and  Marquesas  groups. 

Such  a  man  was  Probyn,  who  dwelt 
on  one  of  the  low  atolls  of  the  Ellice 
Islands.  He  had  landed  there  one 
day    from    a    Sydney  whaler    with    a 


Il8 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

chest  of  clothes,  a  musket  or  two, 
and  a  tierce  of  twist  tobacco  ;  with 
him  came  a  savage-eyed,  fierce-look- 
ing native  wife,  over  whose  shoulders 
fell  long  waves  of  black  hair ;  and 
a  child  about  five  years  old. 

The  second  mate  of  the  whaler, 
who  was  in  charge  of  the  boat,  not 
liking  the  looks  of  the  natives  that 
swarmed  around  the  new-comer,  bade 
him  a  hurried  farewell,  and  pushed 
away  to  the  ship,  which  lay-to  off  the 
passage  with  her  fore-yard  aback. 
Then  the  clamorous  natives  pressed 
more  closely  around  Probyn  and  his 
wife,  and  assailed  them  with  questions. 

So  far  neither  of  them  had  spoken. 
Probyn,  a  tall,  wiry,  scanty-haired 
man,  was  standing  with  one  foot  on 
the  tierce  of  tobacco  and  his  hands  in 
his  pockets.  His  wife  glared  defiantly 
at  some  two  or  three  score  of  reddish- 
brown  women  who  crowded  eagerly 
around  her  to  stare  into  her  face  ; 
holding  to  the  sleeve  of  her  dress  was 
the  child,  paralysed  into  the  silence 
of  fright. 

The  deafening  babble  and  frantic 
gesticulations  were  perfectly  explicable 
to  Probyn,  and    he    apprehended   no 


119 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

danger.  The  head  man  of  the  town 
had  not  yet  appeared,  and  until  he 
came  this  wild  license  of  behaviour 
would  continue.  At  last  the  natives 
became  silent  and  parted  to  the  right 
and  lek  as  Tahori,  the  head-man,  his 
fat  body  shining  with  cocoa-nut  oil 
and  carrying  an  ebony-wood  club, 
stood  in  front  of  the  white  man  and 
eyed  him  up  and  down.  The  scrutiny 
seemed  satisfactory.  He  stretched 
out  his  huge,  naked  arm  and  shook 
Probyn's  hand,  uttering  his  one  word 
of  Samoan — Talofa !  "^  and  then,  in 
his  own  dialect,  he  asked  :  "  What  is 
your  name,  and  what  do  you  want  ? " 

"  Sam,"  replied  Probyn.  And  then, 
in  the  Tokelau  language,  which  the 
wild-eyed  people  around  him  fairly 
understood,  "I  have  come  here  to  live 
with  you  and  trade  for  oil  " — and  he 
pointed  to  the  tierce  of  tobacco. 

"  Where  are  you  from  ? " 

"  From  the  land  called  Nukunono, 
in  the  Tokelau." 

"  Why  come  here  ?  " 

"  Because  I  killed  some  one  there." 

"Good!"  grunted  the  fat  man; 
"there  are  no  twists  in  your  tongue  ; 

'  Lit.,  "My  love  to  you,"'  the  Samoan  salu- 
tation. 


I  20 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

but  why  did  the  boat  hasten  away  so 
quickly  ? " 

"They  were  frightened  because  of 
the  noise.  He  with  the  face  like  a 
fowl's  talked  too  much " — and  he 
pointed  to  a  long,  hatchet-visaged 
native,  who  had  been  especially  tur- 
bulent and  vociferous. 

"  Ha  !  "  and  the  fat,  bearded  face 
of  Tahori  turned  from  the  white  man 
to  him  of  whom  the  white  man  had 
spoken — "is  it  thee,  Makoi  ?  And  so 
thou  madest  the  strangers  hasten  away ! 
That  was  wrong.  Only  for  thee  I  had 
gone  to  the  ship  and  gotten  many 
things.     Come  here  !  " 

Then  he  stooped  and  picked  up 
one  of  Probyn's  muskets,  handed  it 
to  the  white  man,  and  silently  indi- 
cated the  tall  native  with  a  nod.  The 
other  natives  fell  back.  Niabong, 
Probyn's  wife,  set  her  boy  on  his 
feet,  put  her  hand  in  her  bosom  and 
drew  out  a  key,  with  which  she  opened 
the  chest.  She  threw  back  the  lid, 
fixed  her  black  eyes  on  Probyn,  and 
waited, 

Probyn,  holding  the  musket  in  his 
left  hand,  mused  a  moment.  Then  he 
asked  : 


121 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

"Whose  man  is  he  ?" 

"  Mine,"  said  Tahori  ;  "he  is  from 
Oaitupu,  and  my  bondman." 

"  Has  he  a  wife  ?  " 

"  No  ;  he  is  poor  and  works  in  my. 
puraka'^  field." 

"  Good,"  said  Probyn,  and  he  mo- 
tioned to  his  wife.  She  dived  her 
hand  into  the  chest  and  handed  him 
a  tin  of  powder,  then  a  bullet,  a  cap, 
and  some  scraps  of  paper. 

Slowly  he  loaded  the  musket,  and 
Tahori,  seizing  the  bondman  by  his 
arm,  led  him  out  to  the  open,  and 
stood  by,  club  in  hand,  on  the  alert. 

Probyn  knew  his  reputation  de- 
pended on  the  shot.  The  ball  passed 
through  the  chest  of  Makoi.  Then 
four  men  picked  up  the  body  and 
carried  it  into  a  house. 

Probyn  laid  down  the  musket  and 
motioned  again  to  Niabong.  She 
handed  him  a  hatchet  and  blunt 
chisel.  Tahori  smiled  pleasantly, 
and,  drawing  the  little  boy  to  him, 
patted  his  head. 

Then,  at  a  sign  from  him,  a  woman 

'  A  coarse  species  of  taro  {arum  esculentum) 
growing  on  the  low-lying  atolls  of  the  mid- 
Pacific. 


122 


BY     REEF    AND    PALM. 

brought     Niabong    a    shell    of    sweet 
toddy.       The    chief   sat    cross-legged  , 
and    watched    Probyn     opening     the 
tierce    of    tobacco.     Niabong    locked 
the  box  again  and  sat  upon  it. 

"Who  are  you  ?"  said  Tahori,  still 
caressing  the  boy. 

"  Niabong.  But  my  tongue  twists 
with  your  talk  here.  I  am  of  Naura 
(Pleasant  Island).  By  and  by  I  will 
understand  it." 

"  True.  He  is  a  great  man,  thy 
man,"  said  the  chief,  nodding  at 
Probyn. 

"A  great  man,  truly.  There  is 
not  one  thing  in  the  world  but  he 
can  do  it." 

"  E  mce"  ^  said  the  fat  man,  ap- 
provingly ;  "I  can  see  it.  Look  you, 
he  shall  be  as  my  brother,  and  thy 
child  here  shall  eat  of  the  best  in  the 
land." 

Probyn  came  over  with  his  two  hands 
filled  with  sticks  of  tobacco.  "Bring 
a  basket,"  he  said. 

A  young  native  girl  slid  out  from 
the  cocoanuts  at  Tahori's  bidding  and 
stood  behind  him,  holding  a  basket. 
Probyn  counted  out  into  it  two  hun- 
dred sticks. 

»  True. 


123 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM 

"  See,  Tahori.  I  am  a  just  man  to 
thee  because  thou  art  a  just  man  to 
me.  Here  is  the  price  of  him  that 
thou  gavest  to  me." 

Tahori  rose  and  beckoned  to  the 
people  to  return.  "  Look  at  this 
man.  He  is  a  great  man.  His  heart 
groweth  from  his  loins  upwards  to  his 
throat.  Bring  food  to  my  house 
quickly,  that  he  and  his  wife  and 
child  may  eat.  And  to-morrow  shall 
every  man  cut  wood  for  the  house,  a 
house  that  shall  be  in  length  six 
fathoms,  and  four  in  width.  Such 
men  as  he  come  from  the  gods." 


124 


The  Doctor  s  Wife, 

CONSANGUINITY FROM     A     POLYNESIAN 

STANDPOINT. 


HO  !  "  said  Lagisiva,  the 
widow,  tossing  her  hair 
back  over  her  shoulders, 
as  she  raised  the  heavy, 
fluted  tappa  mallet  in 
her  thick,  strong  right 
hand,  and  dealt  the 
tappa  cloth  a  series  of 
quick  strokes — "Oho!" 
said  the  dark  -  faced 
Lagisiva,  looking  up  at 
the  White  Man,  "  be- 
cause I  be  a  woman 
dost  think  me  a  fool  ? 
I  tell  thee  I  know  some 
of  the  customs  of  the 
the  white  foreigners.    Much 


papalrtgi- 


I2S 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 


wisdom  have  ye  in  many  things;  but 
again  I  tell  thee,  O  friend  of  my  sons, 
that  in  some  other  things  the  people 
of  thy  nation,  ay,  of  all  white  nations, 
they  be  as  the  beasts  of  the  forest — 
the  wild  goat  and  pig — without  reason 
and  without  shame.  Tah  !  Has  not 
my  eldest  son,  Tui  Fau,  whom  the 
white  men  call  Bob,  lived  for  seven 
years  in  Sini  (Sydney),  when  he  re- 
turned from  those  places  by  New 
Guinea,  where  he  was  diver  ?  And 
he  has  filled  my  ears  with  the  bad  and 
shameless  customs  of  the  papalagi. 
Tah  !  I  say  again  thy  women  have 
not  the  shame  of  ours.  The  heat  of 
desire  devoureth  chastity  even  in  those 
of  one  blood." 

"In  what  do  they  offend,  O  my 
mother  ? " 

'■'■  Aue !  Life  is  short;  and,  behold, 
this  piece  of  siapo '  is  for  a  wedding 
present,  and  I  must  hurry  ;  but  yet 
put  down  thy  gun  and  bag  and  we 
shall  smoke  awhile,  and  thou  shalt 
feel  shame  while  I  tell  of  one  of  the 
papalagi  customs  —  the  marrying  of 
brother  and  sister." 

"  Nay,    mother,"    said    the    White 

'  The  tappa  cloth  of  the  South  Seas,  made 
fiom  the  bark  of  the  paper  mulberry. 


126 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

Man,  "not  brother  and  sister,  but 
only  cousins." 

"  Tah  !  "  and  the  big  widow  spat 
scornfully  on  the  ground,  "  those  are 
words,  words.  It  is  the  same  ;  the 
same  is  the  blood,  the  same  is  the 
bone.  Even  in  our  heathen  days  we 
pointed  the  finger  at  one  who  looked 
with  the  eye  of  love  on  the  daughter 
of  his  father's  brother  or  sister — for 
such  did  we  let  his  blood  out  upon 
the  sand.  And  I,  old  Lagisiva,  have 
seen  a  white  man  brought  to  shame 
through  this  wickedness." 

"Tell  me,"  said  the  White  Man. 

"He  was  zfomdi  (doctor)  and  rich, 
and  came  here  because  he  desired  to 
see  strange  places,  and  was  weary  of 
his  life  in  the  land  of  the  papalagi. 
So  he  remained  with  us  and  hunted 
the  v/ild  boar  with  our  young  men, 
and  became  strong  and  hardy  and  like 
unto  one  of  our  people.  And  then, 
because  he  was  for  ever  restless,  he 
sailed  away  once  and  returned  in  a 
small  ship,  and  brought  back  trade 
and  built  a  store  and  a  fine  house  to 
dwell  in.  The  chief  of  this  town 
gave  him,  for  friendship,  a  piece  of 
land  over  there  by  the  Vai-ta-milo,  and 


127 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

thus  did  he  become  a  still  greater 
man  ;  his  store  was  full  of  rich  goods, 
and  he  kept  many  servants,  and  at 
night-time  his  house  was  as  a  blaze  of 
fire,  for  the  young  men  and  women 
would  go  there  and  sing  and  dance, 
and  he  had  many  lovers  amongst  our 
young  girls. 

"  I,  old  Lagisiva,  who  am  now  fat 
and  dull,  was  one.  Oho,  he  was  a 
man  of  plenty  I  Did  a  girl  but  look 
out  between  her  eyelashes  at  a  piece 
of  print  in  the  store,  lo  !  it  was 
hers,  even  though  it  measured  twenty 
fathoms  in  length — and  print  was  a 
dollar  a  fathom  in  those  days.  So 
every  girl — even  those  from  parts  far 
off — cast  herself  in  his  way,  that  he 
might  notice  her.  And  he  was  gene- 
rous to  all  alike — in  that  alone  was 
wisdom. 

"Once  or  twice  every  year  the  ships 
brought  him  letters.  And  he  would 
count  the  marks  on  the  paper,  and 
tell  us  that  they  came  from  a  woman 
of  the  papalagi — his  cousin,  as  you 
would  call  her — whose  picture  was 
hung  over  his  table.  She  was  for  ever 
smiling  down  upon  us,  and  her  eyes 
were  his   eyes,  and  if  he   but  smiled 


128 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

then  were  the  two  alike — alike  as  are 
two  children  of  the  same  birth.  When 
three  years  had  come  and  gone  a  ship 
brought  him  a  letter,  and  that  night 
there  were  many  of  us  at  his  house, 
men  and  women,  to  talk  with  the 
people  from  the  ship.  When  those 
had  gone  away  to  their  sleep,  he 
called  to  the   chief  and  said  : — 

" '  In  two  days,  O  my  friend,  I  set 
out  for  my  land  again  ;  but  to  return, 
for  much  do  I  desire  to  remain  with 
you  always.  In  six  months  I  shall  be 
here  again.  And  there  is  one  thing 
I  would  speak  of.  I  shall  bring  back 
a  white  wife,  a  woman  of  my  own 
country  whom  I  have  loved  for  many 
years.' 

"  Then  Tamaali'i,  the  chief,  who  was 
my  father's  father  and  very  old,  said, 
'She  shall  be  my  daughter,  and  wel- 
come,' and  many  of  us  young  girls  said 
also,  'she  shall  be  welcome  ' — although 
we  felt  sorrowful  to  lose  a  man  so  good 
and  open-handed.  And  then  did  the 
fotndi  call  to  the  old  chief  and  two 
others,  and  they  entered  the  store  and 
lighted  lamps,  and  presently  a  man 
went  forth  into  the  village  and  cried 
aloud,  'Come  hither,  all  people,  and 
listen!'     So,    many    hundreds    came. 


129 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

and  we  all  went  in  and  found  the 
floor  covered  with  some  of  everything 
that  the  white  man  possessed.  And 
the  chief  spoke  and  said  : 

"  '  Behold,  my  people,  this  our  good 
friend  goeth  away  to  his  own  country 
that  he  may  bring  back  a  wife.  And 
because  many  young  unmarried  girls 
will  say,  "Why  does  he  leave  us — are 
not  we  as  good  to  look  upon  as  this 
other  woman  ?  "  does  he  put  these  pre- 
sents here  on  the  ground  and  these 
words  into  my  mouth — "  Out  of  his 
love  to  you,  which  must  be  a  thing 
that  is  past  and  forgotten,  the  wife 
that  is  coming  must  not  know  of  some 
little  things — that  is  papa/^gi  custom." ' 

"And  then  every  girl  that  had  a 
wish  took  whatever  she  fancied,  and 
the  white  man  charged  us  to  say 
naught  that  would  arouse  the  anger 
of  the  wife  that  was  to  come.  And 
so  he  departed. 

"One  hundred  and  ten  fat  hogs 
killed  we  and  roasted  whole  for  the 
feast  of  welcome.  I  swear  it  by  the 
Holy  Ones  of  God's  Kingdom — one 
hundred  and  ten.  And  yet  this  white 
lily  of  his  never  smiled — not  even  on 
us  young  girls  who  danced  and  sang 


130 


BV    REEF    AND    PALM. 

before  her,  only  she  clung  to  his  arm, 
and,  behold,  when  we  drew  close  to 
her  we  saw  it  was  the  woman  in  the 
picture — his  sister  ! 

"And  then  one  by  one  all  those 
that  had  gathered  to  do  him  honour 
went  away  in  shame — shame  that  he 
should  do  this,  wed  his  own  sister, 
and  many  women  said  worse  of  her. 
But  yet  the  feast — the  hogs,  and  yams, 
and  taro,  and  fish,  and  fowls — was 
brought  and  placed  by  his  doorstep, 
but  no  one  spake,  and  at  night-time 
he  was  alone  with  his  wife,  till  he 
sent  for  the  old  chief,  and  reproached 
him  with  bitter  words  for  the  coldness 
of  the  people,  and  asked,  '  Why  is 
this  ? ' 

"  And  the  old  man  pointed  to  the 
picture  over  the  table,  and  said,  '  Is 
this  she — thy  wife  ? ' 

"'Ay,'  said  the  White  Man. 

" '  Is  she  not  of  the  same  blood  as 
thyself?' 

"  '  Even  so,'  said  he. 

"'Then  shalt  thou  live  alone  in 
thy  shame,'  said  the  old  man  ;  and  he 
went  away. 

"  So,  for  many  months,  these  two 
lived.     He  found  some  to  work    for 


131 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

him,  and  some  young  girls  to  tend 
his  sister,  whom  he  called  his  wife, 
whilst  she  lay  ill  with  her  first  child. 
And  the  day  after  it  was  born,  some 
one  whispered,  'He  is  accursed!  the 
child  cries  not — it  is  dumb.'  For  a 
week  it  lived,  yet  never  did  it  cry,  for 
the  curse  of  wickedness  was  upon  it. 
Then  the  white  man  nursed  her 
tenderly,  and  took  her  away  to  live 
in  Fiji  for  six  months.  When  they 
came  back  it  was  the  same — no  one 
cared  to  go  inside  his  house,  and  he 
cursed  us,  and  said  he  would  bring 
men  from  Tokelau  to  work  for  him. 
We  said  naught.  Then  in  time 
another  child  was  born,  and  it  was 
hideous  to  look  upon,  and  that  also 
died. 

"Now,  there  was  a  girl  amongst  us 
whose  name  was  Suni,  to  whom  the 
white  woman  spoke  much,  for  she 
was  learning  our  tongue,  and  Suni,  by 
reason  of  the  white  woman's  many 
presents,  spoke  openly  to  her,  and 
told  her  of  the  village  talk.  Then 
the  white  woman  wept,  and  arose 
and  spoke  to  the  man  for  a  long 
while.  And  she  came  back  to  Suni 
and  said,  '  What    thou    hast   told    me 


132 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

was  in  my  own  heart  three  years  ago ; 
yet,  because  it  is  the  custom  of  my 
people,  I  married  this  man,  who  is  the 
son  of  my  father's  brother.  But  now 
I  shall  go  away.'  Then  the  white 
man  came  out  and  beat  Suni  with  a 
stick.  But  yet  was  his  sister,  whom 
he  called  his  wife,  eaten  up  with 
shame,  and  when  a  ship  came  they 
went  away  and  we  saw  her  not  again. 
For  about  two  years  we  heard  no 
more  of  our  white  man,  till  he  re- 
turned and  said  the  woman  was  dead. 
And  he  took  Suni  for  wife,  who  bore 
him  three  children,  and  then  they 
went  away  to  some  other  country — 
I  know  not  where." 

"  I  thank  thee  many,  many  times, 

0  friend  of  my  sons.  Four  children 
of  mine  here  live  in  this  village,  yet 
not  a  one  of  them  ever  asks  me  when 

1  smoked  last.  May  God  walk  with 
thee  for  this  stick  of  tobacco." 


133 


The    Fate    of  the 
''  Alidar 


HE  other  day,  in  an 
Australian  paper,  I 
read  something  that 
set  me  thinking  of 
Taplin — of  Taplin  and 
his  wife,  and  the  fate 
of  the  Alida.  This 
is  what  I  read  : — 

"News  has  reached 
Tahiti  that  a  steamer 
had  arrived  at  Toulon 
with  two  noted 
prisoners  on  board. 
These  men,  who  are 
brothers  named  Ro- 
vique,  long  ago 
left  Tahiti  on  an 
island- trading  trip, 
and   when   the    vessel 


135 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

got  to  sea  they  murdered  the  captain, 
a  passenger,  the  supercargo  (Mr. 
Gibson,  of  Sydney),  and  two  sailors, 
and  threw  their  bodies  overboard. 
The  movers  in  the  afFair  were 
arrested  at  Ponape,  in  the  Caroline 
Islands.  The  vessel  belonged  to  a 
Tahitian  prince,  and  was  called  the 
Nuroa/iti,  but  its  name  had  been 
changed  after  the  tragedy.  The 
accused  persons  were  sent  to  Manilla. 
From  Manilla  they  appear  now  to 
have  been  sent  on  to  France," 

We  were  lying  inside  Funafuti 
Lagoon,  in  the  EUice  Group,  The 
last  cask  of  oil  had  been  towed  off  to 
the  brig  and  placed  under  hatches, 
and  we  were  to  sail  in  the  morning 
for  our  usual  cruise  among  the  Gilbert 
and  Kingsmill  Islands. 

Our  captain,  a  white  trader  from 
the  shore,  and  myself  were  sitting  on 
deck  "yarning"  and  smoking.  We 
lay  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the 
beach — such  a  beach,  white  as  the 
driven  snow,  and  sweeping  in  a  great 
curve  for  five  long  miles  to  the  north 
and  a  lesser  distance  to  the  south  and 
west. 

Right  abreast  of  the  brig,  nestling 


136 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

like  huge  birds'  nests  in  the  shade  of 
groves  of  cocoanut  and  breadfruit  trees, 
were  the  houses  of  the  principal  village 
in  Funafuti. 

Presently  the  skipper  picked  up  his 
glasses  that  lay  beside  him  on  the  sky- 
light, and  looked  away  down  to  lee- 
ward, where  the  white  sails  of  a  schooner 
beating  up  to  the  anchorage  were 
outlined  against  the  line  of  palms 
that  fringed  the  beach  of  Funafala — 
the  westernmost  island  that  forms  one 
of  the  chain  enclosing  Funafuti  Lagoon. 

"It's  Taplin's  schooner,  right 
enough,"  he  said.  "  Let  us  go  ashore 
and  give  him  and  his  pretty  wife  a 
hand  to  pack  up." 

Taplin  was  the  name  of  the  only 
other  white  trader  on  Funafuti  besides 
old  Tom  Humphreys,  our  own  man. 
He  had  been  two  years  on  the  island, 
and  was  trading  in  opposition  to  our 
trader,  as  agent  for  a  foreign  house — 
our  owners  were  Sydney  people — 
but  his  firm's  unscrupulous  method 
of  doing  business  had  disgusted  him. 
So  one  day  he  told  the  supercargo  of 
their  vessel  that  he  would  trade  for 
them  no  longer  than  the  exact  time 
he  had  agreed  upon — two  years.     He 


137 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

had  come  to  Funafuti  from  the 
Pelews,  and  was  now  awaiting  the 
return  of  his  firm's  vessel  to  take  him 
back  there  again.  Getting  into  our 
boat  we  were  pulled  ashore  and 
landed  on  the  beach  in  front  of  the 
trader's  house. 

"Well,  Taplin,  here's  your  schooner 
at  last,"  said  old  Tom,  as  we  shook 
hands  and  seated  ourselves  in  the  com- 
fortable, pleasant-looking  room.  "I 
see  you're  getting  ready  to  go." 

Taplin  was  a  man  of  about  thirty 
or  so,  with  a  quiet,  impassive  face  and 
dark,  deep-set  eyes  that  gave  to  his 
features  a  somewhat  gloomy  look, 
except  when  he  smiled,  which  was 
not  often.  Men  with  that  curious, 
far-ofF  look  in  their  eyes  are  not 
uncommon  among  the  lonely  islands 
of  the  wide  Pacific.  Sometimes  it 
comes  to  a  man  with  long,  long  years 
of  wandering  to  and  fro  ;  and  you 
will  see  it  deepen  when,  by  some  idle, 
chance  word,  you  move  the  memories 
of  a  forgotten  past — ere  he  had  even 
dreamed  of  the  existence  of  the  South 
Sea  Islands,  and  for  ever  dissevered 
himself  from  all  links  and  associations 
of  the  outside  world. 


138 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

♦'  Yes,"  he  answered,  "  I  am  nearly 
ready.  I  saw  the  schooner  at  daylight, 
and  knew  it  was  the  Jlida." 

"Where  do  you  think  of  going  to, 
Taplin  ?  "  I  asked. 

"Back  to  the  Carolines.  Nerida 
belongs  down  that  way,  you  know  ; 
and  she  is  fretting  to  get  back  again — 
otherwise  I  wouldn't  leave  this  island. 
I've  done  pretty  well  here,  although 
the  people  I  trade  for  are — well,  you 
know  what  they  are." 

"Aye,"  assented  old  Humphreys, 
"  there  isn't  one  of  'em  but  what  is  the 
two  ends  and  bight  of  a — scoundrel  ; 
and  that  supercargo  with  the  yaller 
moustache  and  womany  hands  is  the 
worst  of  the  lot.  I  wonder  if  he's 
aboard  this  trip?  I  don't  let  him 
inside  my  house ;  I've  got  too  many 
daughters,  and  they  all  think  him  a 
fine  man." 

•  •  •  • 

Nerida,  Taplin's  wife,  came  out  to 
us  from  an  inner  room.  She  -was  a 
native  of  one  of  the  Pelew  Islands,  a 
tall  slenderly  built  girl,  with  pale, 
olive  skin  and  big,  soft  eyes.  A 
flowing  gown  of  yellow  muslin — the 
favourite  colour  of  the  Portuguese 
blooded    natives     of     the     Pelews — 


139 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

buttoned  high  up  to  her  throat,  draped 
her  graceful  figure.  After  putting 
her  little  hand  in  ours,  and  greeting 
us  in  the  Funafuti  dialect,  she  went 
over  to  Taplin,  and  touching  his  arm,  ' 
pointed  out  the  schooner  that  was 
now  only  a  mile  or  so  away,  and  a 
smile  parted  her  lips,  and  the  star-like 
eyes  glowed  and  filled  with  a  tender 
light. 

1  felt  Captain  Warren  touch  my 
arm  as  he  rose  and  went  outside.  I 
followed. 

"L ,"     said     Warren,    "can't 

we  do  something  for  Taplin  ourselves. 
Isn't  there  a  station  anywhere  about 
Tonga  or  Wallis  Island  that  would 
suit  him." 

"  Would  he  come,  Warren  ?  He — 
or  rather,  that  pretty  wife  of  his — seems 
bent  upon  going  away  in  the  schooner 
to  the  Carolines." 

"Aye,"  said  the  skipper,  "that's  it. 
If  it  were  any  other  vessel  I  wouldn't 
care."    Then  suddenly,  "  That  fellow 

Motley  (the    supercargo)  is   a  d 

scoundrel  —  capable  of  any  villainy 
where  a  woman  is  concerned.  Did 
you  ever  hear  about  old  Raymond's 
daughter,  down  at  Mangareva  ? " 


140 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

I  had  heard.  Suffice  it  here  to  say 
that  by  means  of  a  forged  letter  pur- 
porting to  have  been  written  by  her 
father — an  old  English  trader  in  the 
Gambier  Group — Motley  had  lured 
the  beautiful  young  half-blood  away 
from  a  school  in  San  Francisco,  and  six 
months  afterwards  turned  her  adrift 
on  the  streets  of  Honolulu.  Raymond 
was  a  lonely  man,  and  passionately 
attached  to  his  only  child;  so  no  one 
wondered  when,  reaching  California 
a  year  after  and  finding  her  gone, 
he  shot  himself  in  his  room  at  an 
hotel. 

"  I  will  ask  him,  anyway,"  I  said  ; 
and  as  we  went  back  into  the  house 
the  Alida  shot  past  our  line  of  vision 
through  the  cocoanuts,  and  brought  up 
inside  the  brig. 

"Taplin,"  I  said,  "would  you  care 
about  taking  one  of  our  stations  to  the 
eastward  ?  Name  any  island  you  fancy, 
and  we  will  land  you  there  with  the 
pick  of  our  '  trade  '  room." 

"Thank  you.  I  would  be  only  too 
glad — but  I  cannot.  I  have  promised 
Nerida  to  go  back  to  Babelthouap  or 
somewhere  in  the  Pelews,  and  Motley 
has  promised  to  land  us  at  Ponape,  in 


14T 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

the  Carolines.  We  can  get  away 
from  there  in  one  of  the  Dutch  firm's 
vessels." 

"I  am  very  sorry,  Taplin "  I 

commenced,  when  Captain  Warren, 
burst  in  with — "  Look  here,  Taplin, 
we  haven't  got  much  time  to  talk. 
Here's  the  Jlidah  boat  coming,  with 
that  (blank  blank)  scoundrel  Motley 
in  it.  Take  my  advice.  Don't  go 
away  in  the  Alidad  And  then  he 
looked  at  Nerida  and  whispered  some- 
thing. 

A  red  spark  shone  in  Taplin's  dark 
eyes,  then  he  pressed  Warren's  hand. 

"I  know,"  he  answered,  "he's  a 
most  infernal  villain — Nerida  hates 
him  too.  But  you  see  howl  am  fixed. 
The  Alida  is  our  only  chance  of  getting 
back  to  the  north-west.  But  he  hasn't 
got  old  Raymond  to  deal  with  in  me. 
Here  they  are." 

Motley  came  in  first,  hat  and  fan  in 
hand.  He  was  a  fine-looking  man, 
with  blue  eyes  and  an  unusually  fair 
skin  for  an  island  supercargo,  with  a 
long,  drooping,  yellow  moustache. 
Reidermann,  the  skipper,  who  fol- 
lowed, was  stout,  coarse,  red-faced,  and 
brutal. 


142 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

"  How  are  you,  gentlemen  ?  "  said 
Motley,  affably,  turning  from  Taplin 
and  his  wife  advancing  towards  us  ; 
"  Captain  Riedermann  and  I  saw  the 
spars  of  your  brig  showing  up  over 
the  cocoanuts  yesterday,  and  there- 
fore knew  we  should  have  the  plea- 
sure of  meeting  you." 

Warren  looked  steadily  at  him  for 
a  moment,  and  then  glanced  at  his 
outstretched  hand. 

"  The  pleasure  isn't  mutual,  blarst 
you,  Mr.  Motley,"  he  said  coldly,  and 
he  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket. 

The  supercargo  took  a  step  nearer 
to  him  with  a  savage  glare  in  his  blue 
eyes.  "  What  do  you  mean  by  this, 
Captain  Warren  ?  " 

"  Mean,"  and  the  imperturbable 
Warren  seated  himself  on  a  corner  of 
the  table,  and  gazed  stolidly  first  at  the 
handsome  Motley  and  then  at  the 
heavy,  vicious  features  of  Riedermann. 
"Oh,  anything  you  like.  Perhaps  it's 
because  it's  not  pleasant  to  see  white 
men  landing  at  a  quiet  island  like  this 
with  revolvers  slung  to  their  waists 
under  their  pyjamas;  looks  a  bit  too 
much  like  Bully  Hayes'  style  for  me," 
and  then  his  tone  of  cool  banter  sud- 
denly   changed    to    that    of    studied 


143 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

insolence.  "  I  say.  Motley,  I  was 
talking  about  you  just  now  to  Taplin 
and  Nerida ;  do  you  want  to  know 
what  I  was  saying  ?  Perhaps  I  had 
better  tell  you.  I  was  talking  about 
Tita  Raymond — and  yourself." 


Motley  put  his  right  hand  under 
his  pyjama  jacket,  but  Taplin  sprang 
forward,  seized  his  wrist  in  a  grip  of 
iron,  and  drew  him  aside. 

"  The  man  who  draws  a  pistol  in 
my  house,  Mr.  Motley,  does  a  foolish 
thing,"  he  said,  in  quiet,  contemptuous 
tones,  as  he  threw  the  supercargo's 
revolver  into  a  corner. 

With  set  teeth  and  clenched  hands 
Motley  flung  himself  into  a  chair, 
unable  to  speak. 

Warren,  still  seated  on  the  table, 
swung  his  foot  nonchalantly  to  and  fro 
and  then  commenced  at  Riedermann. 

"Why,  how's  this,  Captain  Rieder- 
man  ?  don't  you  back  up  your  super- 
cargo's little  quarrels,  or  have  you 
left  your  pistol  on  board  ?  Ah,  no, 
you  haven't.  I  can  see  it  there  right 
enough.  Modesty  forbids  you  putting 
a  bullet  into  a  man  in  the  presence  of 
a    lady,   eh?"     Then   slewing    round 


144 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

again  he  addressed  Motley,  "  By  God, 
sir,  it  is  well  for  you  that  we  are  in  a 
white  man's  house  and  that  that  man 
is  my  friend  and  took  away  that  pistol 
from  your  treacherous  hand;  if  you 
had  fired  at  me  /  would  have  ^looted' 
you  from  one  end  of  Funafuti  beach  to 
the  other — and  I've  a  damned  good 
mind  to  do  it  now,  but  won't,  as 
Taplin  has  to  do  some  business  with 
you." 

"That  will  do,  Warren,"  I  said. 
"We  don't  want  to  make  a  scene 
in  Taplin's  house.  Let  us  go  away 
and  allow  him  to  finish  his  business." 

Still  glaring  angrily  at  Riedermann 
and  Motley,  Warren  got  down  slowly 
from  the  table.  Then  we  bade 
Taplin  and  Nerida  good-bye  and  went 
aboard. 

At  daylight  we  saw  Taplin  and 
his  wife  go  off  in  the  judo's  boat. 
They  waved  their  hands  to  us  in  fare- 
well as  the  boat  pulled  past  the 
brig,  and  then  the  schooner  hovc-up 
anchor,  and  with  all  sail  set  stood 
away  down  to  the  north-west  passage 
of  the  lagoon. 

A  year  or  so  cfterward  we  were  on 


145 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

a  trading  voyage  to  the  islands  of  the 
Tubuai  Group,  and  were  lying  be- 
calmed, in  company  with  a  New 
Bedford  whaler.  Her  skipper  came 
on  board  the  brig,  and  we  started 
talking  of  Taplin,  whom  the  whale- 
ship  captain  knew. 

"  Didn't  you  hear  ? "  he  said.  "  The 
j^lida  never  showed  up  again. 
'  Turned  turtle,'  I  suppose,  some- 
where in  the  islands,  like  all  those 
slashing  over-masted  'Frisco  -  built 
schooners  do,  sooner  or  later." 

"Poor  Taplin,"  said  Warren,  "I 
thought  somehow  we  would  never  see 
him  again." 

Five  years  had  passed.  Honest  old 
Warren,  fiery-tempered  and  tr'!**- 
hearted,  had  long  since  died  of  fever 
in  the  Solomons,  and  I  was  supercargo 
with  a  smart  young  American  skipper 
in  the  brigantine  Palestine,  when  we 
one  day  sailed  along  the  weather-side 
of  a  tiny  little  atoll  in  the  Caroline 
Islands. 

The  Palestine  was  leaking,  and 
Packenham,  tempted  by  the  easy 
passage  into  the  beautiful  lagoon, 
decided  to  run  inside  and  discharge 
our  cargo  of  copra  to  get  at  the  leak. 


146 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

The  island  had  but  very  few  in- 
habitants— perhaps  ten  or  twelve  men 
and  double  that  number  of  women 
and  children.  No  ship,  they  told  us, 
had  ever  entered  the  lagoon  but  Bully 
Hayes's  brig,  and  that  was  nine  years 
before.  There  was  nothing  on  the 
island  to  tempt  a  trading  vessel,  and 
even  the  sperm  whalers  as  they 
lumbered  lazily  past  from  Strong's 
Island  to  Guam  would  not  bother  to 
lower  a  boat  and  "dicker"  for  pearl- 
shell  or  turtle. 

At  the  time  of  Hayes'  visit  the 
people  were  in  sore  straits,  and  on  the 
brink  of  actual  starvation,  for  although 
there  were  fish  and  turtle  in  plenty, 
they  had  not  the  strength  to  catch 
them.  A  few  months  before  a  cyclone 
had  destroyed  nearly  all  the  cocoa- 
nut  trees,  and  an  epidemic  followed 
it,  and  carried  off  half  the  scanty 
population. 

The  jaunty  sea-rover — than  whom 
a  kinder-hearted  man  to  natives  never 
sailed  the  South  Seas — took  pity  on  the 
survivors,  especially  the  youngest  and 
prettiest  girls,  and  gave  them  a  pas- 
sage in  the  famous  Leonora  to  another 
island  where  food  was  plentiful.  There 


M7 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

they  remained  for  some  years,  till  the 
inevitable  mal  du  pays  that  is  inborn 
to  every  Polynesian  and  Micronesian, 
became  too  strong  to  be  resisted  ;  and 
so,  one  day,  a  wandering  sperm  whaler 
brought  them  back  again. 

But  in  their  absence  strangers  had 
come  to  the  island.  As  the  people 
landed  from  the  boats  of  the  whale- 
ship,  two  brown  men,  a  woman  and  a 
child,  came  out  of  one  of  the  houses, 
and  gazed  at  them.  Then  they  fled  to 
the  farthest  end  of  the  island  and  hid. 

Some  weeks  passed  before  the  re- 
turned islanders  found  out  the  retreat 
of  the  strangers,  who  were  armed 
with  rifles,  and  called  to  them  to 
"  come  out  and  be  friends,"  They  did 
so,  and  by  some  subtle  treachery  the 
two  men  were  killed  during  the  night. 
The  woman,  who  was  young  and 
handsome,  was  spared,  and,  from 
what  we  could  learn,  had  been  well 
treated  ever  since. 

"Where  did  the  strangers  come 
from  ?  "  we  asked. 

That  they  could  not  tell  us.  But 
the  woman  had  since  told  them  that 
the  ship  had  anchored  in  the  lagoon 
because  she  was  leaking  badly  ;  and 
that  the  captain  and  crew  were  trying 


148 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

to  Stop  the  leak  when  she  commenced 
to  sink,  and  they  had  barely  time  to 
save  a  few  things  when  she  sank.  In 
a  few  days  the  captain  and  crew  left 
the  island  in  the  boat;  and  rather 
than  face  the  dangers  of  a  long  voyage 
in  such  a  small  boat,  the  two  natives 
and  the  woman  elected  to  remain  on 
the  island. 

"  That's  a  mighty  fishy  yarn,"  said 
Packenham  to  me.  "I  daresay  these 
fellows  have  been  doing  a  little  cut- 
ting-ofF  business.  But  then  I  don't 
know  of  any  missing  vessel.  We'll 
go  ashore  to-morrow  and  have  a  look 
round." 

A  little  after  sunset  the  skipper 
and  I  were  leaning  over  the  rail 
watching  the  figures  of  the  natives  as 
they  moved  to  and  fro  in  the  glare  of 
the  fires  lighted  here  and  there  along 
the  beach. 

"Hallo,"  said  Packenham,  "here's 
a  canoe  coming,  with  only  a  woman 
in  it.  By  thunder  she's  travelling, 
too,  and  coming  straight  for  the  ship." 

A  few  minutes  more  and  the  canoe 
was  alongside.  The  woman  hastily 
picked  up  a  little  girl  that  was  sitting 
in  the  bottom,  looked  up,  and  called 
out  in  English — 


149 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

"  Take  my  little  girl,  please." 

A  native  sailor  leant  over  the  bul- 
warks and  lifted  up  the  child,  and  the 
woman  clambered  after  her.  Then 
seizing  the  child  from  the  sailor,  she 
flew  along  the  deck  and  into  the  cabin. 

She  was  standing  facing  us  as  we 
followed  and  entered,  holding  the  child 
tightly  to  her  bosom.  The  soft  light 
of  the  cabin  lamp  fell  full  upon  her 
features,  and  we  saw  that  she  was  very 
young  and  seemed  wildly  excited. 

"  Who  are  you  ?"  began  I,  when  she 
advanced,  put  out  a  trembling  hand 
tome,  and  said,  "Don't you  know  me, 
Mr.  Supercargo  ?  I  am  Nerida,  Tap- 
lin's  wife."  Then  she  sank  on  a  seat 
and  sobbed  violently. 

We  waited  till  she  regained  her 
composure  somewhat,  and  then  I  said 
"  Nerida,  where  is  Taplin  ?  " 

"  Dead,"  she  said  in  a  voice  scarce 
above  a  whisper,  "  only  us  two  are 
left — I  and  little  Teresa." 

Packenham  held  out  his  hands  to 
the  child.  With  wondering,  timid 
eyes,  she  came,  and  for  a  moment  or 
two  looked  doubtingly  upwards  into 
the  brown,  handsome  face  of  the 
skipper,  and  then  nestled  beside  him 


150 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

For  a  minute  or  so  the  ticking  of 
the  cabin  clock  broke  the  silence,  ere 
I  ventured  to  ask  the  one  question 
uppermost  in  my  mind. 

"  Nerida,  how  and  where  did  Taplin 
die?" 

"  My  husband  was  murdered  at  sea," 
she  said  ;  and  then  she  covered  her 
face  with  her  hands. 

"  Don't  ask  her  any  more  now," 
said  Packenham,  pityingly,  "  let  her 
tell  us  to-morrow." 

She  raised  her  face.  "  Yes,  I  will 
tell  you  to-morrow.  You  will  take 
me  away  with  you  will  you  not, 
gentlemen — for  my  child's  sake  ?  " 

"  Of  course,"  said  the  captain, 
promptly.  And  he  stretched  out  his 
honest  hand  to  her. 


"She's  a  wonderfully  pretty  woman," 
said  Packenham,  as  we  walked  the 
poop  later  on,  and  he  glanced  down 
through  the  open  skylight  to  where 
she  and  the  child  slept  peacefully  on 
the  cushioned  transoms,  "how  prettily 
she  speaks  English  too  ;  do  you  think 
she  was  fond  of  her  husband,  or  was 
it  merely  excitement  that  made  her 
cry — native  women   are  as  prone  to 


151 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

be    as    hysterical    as    our   own  when 
under  any  violent  emotion." 

"  I  can  only  tell  you,  Packenham, 
that  when  I  saw  her  last,  five  years 
ago,  she  was  a  graceful  girl  of  eighteen, . 
and,  as  full  of  happiness  as  a  bird  is  of 
song — she  looks  thirty  now  ;  and  her 
face  is  thin  and  drawn.  But  I  don't 
say  all  for  love  of  Taplin." 

"That  will  all  wear  ofF  by  and 
by,"  said  the  skipper,  confidently. 

"  Yes,"  I  thought,  "  and  she  won't 
be  a  widow  long." 

Next  morning  Nerida  had  an  hour 
or  two  among  the  prints  and  muslin 
in  the  trade-room,  and  there  was  some- 
thing of  the  old  beauty  about  her 
when  she  sat  down  to  breakfast  with 
us.  We  were  to  sail  at  noon.  The 
leak  had  been  stopped,  and  Packen- 
ham was  in  high  good-humour. 

"  Nerida,"  I  inquired,  unthinkingly, 
*'do  you  know  what  became  of  the 
Alida.      She  never  turned  up  again." 

"  Yes,"  she  answered,  "  she  is  here, 
at  the  bottom  of  the  lagoon.  Will 
you  come  and  look  at  her." 

After  breakfast  we  lowered  the 
dingy,  the  captain  and  I  pulling. 
Nerida  steered  us   out    to  the   north 


IC2 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

end  of  the  lagoon  till  we  reached 
a  spot  where  the  water  suddenly 
deepened.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  deep 
pool  some  three  or  four  hundred  feet 
in  circumference,  closed  in  by  a  con- 
tinuous wall  of  coral  rock,  the  top  of 
which  even  at  low  water,  would  be 
perhaps  two  or  more  fathoms  under 
the  surface. 

She  held  up  her  hands  for  us  to 
back  water,  then  she  gazed  over  the 
side  into  the  water. 

"  Look,"  she  said,  "  there  lies  the 
Alidar 

We  bent  over  the  side  of  the  boat. 
The  waters  of  the  lagoon  were  as 
smooth  as  glass  and  as  clear.  We 
saw  two  slender  rounded  columns  that 
seemed  to  shoot  up  in  a  slanting 
direction  from  out  the  vague  blue 
depths  beneath,  to  within  four  or  five 
fathoms  of  the  surface  of  the  water. 
Swarms  of  gorgeously-hued  fish  swam 
and  circled  in  and  about  the  masses 
of  scarlet  and  golden  weed  that 
clothed  the  columns  from  their  tops 
downward  and  swayed  gently  to  and 
fro  as  they  glided  in  and  out. 

A  hawk-bill  turtle,  huge,  black,  and 
misshapen,  slid  out  from  beneath  the 


153 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

dark  ledge  of  the  reef  and  swam 
slowly  across  the  pool,  and  then,  be- 
tween the  masts,  sank  to  the  bottom. 

"'Twas  six  years  ago,"  said  Nerida, 
as  we  raised  our  heads. 

That  night,  as  the  Palestine  sped 
noiselessly  before  the  trade  wind  to  the 
westward  she  told  me,  in  the  old  Funa- 
futi tongue,  the  tragedy  of  the  Alida. 

"  The  schooner,"  she  said,  "  sailed 
very  quickly,  for  on  the  fifteenth  day 
out  from  Funafuti  we  saw  the  far-off- 
peaks  of  Strong's  Island.  I  was  glad, 
for  Kusaie  is  not  many  days'  sail  from 
Ponape — and  I  hated  to  be  on  the  ship. 
The  man  with  the  blue  eyes  filled  me 
with  fear  when  he  looked  at  me  ;  and 
he  and  the  captain  and  mate  were 
for  ever  talking  amongst  themselves  in 
whispers. 

"There  were  five  native  sailors  on 
board — two  were  countrymen  of  mine, 
and  three  were  Tafitos.  * 

"  One  night  we  were  close  to  a  little 
island  called  Mokil,^  and  Taplin  and  I 
were  awakened  by  a  loud  cry  on  deck  ; 
my  two  countrymen  were  calling  on 
him    to    help    them.     He  sprang   on 

'  Natives  of  the  (Gilbert  Islands. 
'  Dupeney's  Island. 


154 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

deck,  pistol  in  hand,  and,  beheld  !  the 
schooner  was  laid  to  the  wind  with 
the  land  close  to,  and  the  boat  along- 
side, and  the  three  white  men  weie 
binding  my  countrymen  with  ropes, 
because  they  would  not  get  into  the 
boat. 

"'  Help  us,  O  friend  !  '  they  called 
to  my  husband  in  their  own  tongue  ; 
*the  white  men  say  that  if  we  go  not 
ashore  here  at  Mokil  they  will  kill 
us.  Help  us — for  they  mean  evil  to 
thee  and  Nerida.  He  with  the  yellow 
moustache  wants  her  for  his  wife.' 

"  There  were  quick  fierce  words, 
and  then  my  husband  struck  Motley 
on  the  head  with  his  pistol  and  felled 
him,  and  then  pointed  it  at  the  mate 
and  the  captain,  and  made  them  untie 
the  men,  and  called  to  the  two  Tafito 
sailors  who  were  in  the  boat  to  let 
her  tow  astern  till  morning. 

"His  face  was  white  with  the  rage 
that  burned  in  him,  and  all  that  night 
he  walked  to  and  fro  and  let  me  sleep 
on  the  deck  near  him. 

" '  To-morrow,'  he  said,  '  I  will 
make  this  captain  land  us  on  Mokil ' — 
it  was  for  that  he  would  not  let  the 
sailors  come  up  from  the  boat. 

"At dawn  I  slept  soundly.    Then  I 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

awoke  with  a  cry  of  fear,  for  I  heard 
a  shot,  and  then  a  groan,  and  my  hus- 
band fell  across  me,  and  the  blood 
poured  out  of  his  mouth  and  ran  down 
my  arms  and  neck.  I  struggled  to 
rise  and  he  tried  to  draw  his  pistol, 
but  the  man  with  yellow  hair  and  blue 
eyes,  who  stood  over  him,  stabbed 
him  twice  in  the  back.  Then  the 
captain  and  mate  seized  him  by  the 
arms  and  lifted  him  up.  As  his  head 
fell  back  1  saw  there  was  blood 
streaming  from  a  hole  in  his  chest." 

She  ceased,  and  leant  her  cheek 
against  the  face  of  the  little  girl,  who 
looked  in  childish  wonder  at  the  tears 
that  streamed  down  her  mother's  face. 

"They  cast  him  over  into  the  sea 
with  life  yet  in  him — and  ere  he  sank, 
Motley  (that  devil  with  the  blue  eyes) 
stood  with  one  foot  on  the  rail  and 
fired  another  shot,  and  laughed  when 
he  saw  the  bullet  strike.  Then  he 
and  the  other  two  talked, 

"'Let  us  finish  these  Pelew  men, 
ere  mischief  come  of  it,'  said  Reider- 
mann,  the  captain. 

"  But  the  others  dissuaded  him. 
There  was  time  enough,  they  said,  to 
kill  them.      And  if  they  killed  them 


i=;6 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

now,  there  would  be  but  three  sailors 
to  work  the  ship.  And  Motley  looked 
at  me  and  laughed,  and  said  he,  for 
one,  would  do  no  sailor's  work  yet 
awhile. 

"  Then  they  all  trooped  below,  and 
took  me  with  them — me,  with  my 
husband's  blood  not  yet  dried  on  my 
hands  and  bosom.  They  made  me  get 
liquor  for  them  to  drink,  and  they 
drank  and  laughed,  and  Motley  put 
his  bloodied  hand  around  my  waist 
and  kissed  me,  and  the  others  laughed 
still  more. 

"  In  a  little  while  Riedermann  and 
the  mate  were  so  drunken  that  no 
words  came  from  them,  and  they  fell 
on  the  cabin  floor.  Then  Motley,  who 
could  stand,  but  staggered  as  he 
walked,  came  and  sat  beside  me  and 
kissed  me  again,  and  said  he  had 
always  loved  me  ;  but  1  pointed  to  the 
blood  of  my  husband  that  stained  my 
skin  and  clotted  my  hair  together,  and 
besought  him  to  first  let  me  wash  it 
away. 

" '  Wash  it  there,'  he  said,  and 
pointed  to  his  cabin. 

"'  Nay,'  said  I,  '  see  my  hair.  Let 
me  then  go  on  deck,  and  I  can  pour 
water  over  my  head.' 


157 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 


*'  But  he  held  my  hand  tightly  as  we 
came  up,  and  my  heart  died  within 
me ;  for  it  was  in  my  mind  to  spring 
overboard  and  follow  my  husband. 

"  He  called  to  one  of  the  Tafito 
men  to  bring  water,  but  none  came ; 
for  they,  too,  were  drunken  with 
liquor  they  had  stolen  from  the  hold, 
where  there  was  plenty  in  red  cases 
and  white  cases — gin  and  brandy. 

"But  my  two  countrymen  were 
sober;  one  of  them  steered  the  ship, 
and  the  other  stood  beside  him  with 
an  axe  in  his  hand,  for  they  feared 
the  Tafito  men,  who  are  devils  when 
they  drink  grog. 

"  '  Get  some  water,'  said  Motley,  to 
Juan — he  who  held  the  axe  ;  and,  as 
he  brought  it,  he  said,  '  How  is  it, 
tatooed  dog,  that  thou  art  so  slow  to 
move  ? '  and  he  struck  him  in  the  teeth, 
and  as  he  struck  he  fell. 

"Ah  !  that  was  my  time  !  Ere  he 
could  rise  I  sprang  at  him,  and  Juan 
raised  the  axe  and  struck  off  his  right 
foot ;  and  then  Liro,  the  man  who 
steered,  handed  me  his  knife.  It  was 
a  sharp  knife,  and  I  stabbed  him,  even 
as  he  had  stabbed  my  husband,  till  my 
arm  was  tired,  and  all  my  hate  of  him 
had  died  away  in  my  heart. 


i=;8 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

"  There  was  quick  work  then.  My 
two  countrymen  went  below  into  the 
cabin  and  took  Motley's  pistol  from 
the  table  ;  .  .  .  then  I  heard  two  shots. 

"  Guk  !  He  was  a  fat,  heavy  man, 
that  Riedermann,  the  captain  ;  the 
three  of  us  could  scarce  drag  him  up 
on  deck  and  cast  him  over  the  side, 
with  the  other  two. 

"Then  Juan  and  Liro  talked  and 
said  '  Now  for  these  Tafito  men  ;  they 
too  must  die.'  They  brought  up  rifles 
and  went  to  the  fore-part  of  the 
schooner  where  the  Tafito  men  lay  in 
a  drunken  sleep  and  shot  them  dead. 

"  In  two  more  days  we  saw  land — 
the  island  we  have  left  but  now,  and 
because  that  there  were  no  people 
living  there — only  empty  houses  could 
we  see — Juan  and  Liro  sailed  the 
schooner  into  the  lagoon. 

"We  took  such  things  on  shore  as 
we  needed,  and  then  Juan  and  Liro 
cut  away  the  topmasts  and  towed 
the  schooner  to  the  deep  pool,  where 
they  made  holes  in  her,  so  that  she 
sank,  away  out  of  the  sight  of  men. 

"Juan  and  Liro  were  kind  to  me, 
and  when  my  child  was  born  five 
months  after  we  landed,  they  cared  for 


159 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM 

me    tenderly,  so  that  I  soon   became 
strong  and  well. 

"Only  two  ships  did  we  ever  see, 
but  they  passed  far-ofF  like  clouds 
upon  the  sea-rim ;  and  we  thought  to 
live  and  die  there  by  ourselves.  Then 
there  came  a  ship,  bringing  back  the 
people  who  had  once  lived  there. 
They  killed  Juan  and  Liro,  but  let 
me  and  the  child  live.  The  rest  I 
have  told  you  .  .  .  how  is  this  captain 
named  ?  .  .  .  He  is  a  handsome  man 
and  I  like  him." 

We  landed  Nerida  at  Yap,  in  the 
Western  Carolines.  A  year  after- 
wards, when  I  left  the  Palestifie,  I 
heard  that  Packenham  had  given  up 
the  sea,  was  -trading  in  the  Pelew 
Group,  and  was  permanently  married, 
and  that  his  wife  was  the  only  sur- 
vivor of  the  ill-fated  Jlida. 


160 


'^^B^om^M^ 


The  Chilian  Bluejacket. 


A    TALE    OF    EASTER    ISLAND 


LONE,  in  the  most  soli- 
tary part  of  the  Eastern 
Pacific,  midway  be- 
tween the  earthquake- 
shaken  littoral  of  Chili 
and  Peru,  and  the 
thousand  palm -clad 
islets  of  the  Low  Ar- 
chipelago, lies  an  island 
of  the  days  "when  the 
world  was  young."  By 
the  lithe-limbed,  soft- 
eyed  descendants  of 
the  forgotten  and  mys- 
terious race  that  once 
quickened  the  land,  this 
lonely   outlier    of    the    isles    of    the 


i6i 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 


Southern  Seas  is  called  in   their  soft 
tongue  Rapa-nui,  or  the  Great  Rapa. 

A  hundred  and  seventy  years  ago 
Roggewein,  on  the  dawn  of  an  Easter 
Sunday,  discerned  through  the  misty, 
tropic  haze  the  grey  outlines  of  an 
island  under  his  lee  beam,  and  sailed 
down  upon  it. 

He  landed,  and  even  as  the  grim 
and  hardy  old  navigator  gazed  upon 
and  wondered  at  the  mysteries  of  the 
strange  island,  so  this  day  do  the 
cunning  men  of  science  who,  perhaps 
once  in  thirty  years,  go  thither  in  the 
vain  effort  to  read  the  secret  of  an  ail- 
but  perished  race.  And  they  can  tell 
us  but  vaguely  that  the  stupendous 
existing  evidences  of  past  glories  are 
of  immense  and  untold  age,  and  show 
their  designers  to  have  been  co-eval 
with  the  builders  of  the  buried  cities 
of  Mexico  and  Peru  ;  beyond  that  they 
can  tell  us  nothing. 

Who  can  solve  the  problem  ?  What 
manner  of  an  island  king  was  he  who 
ruled  the  builders  of  the  great  terraced 
platforms  of  stone,  the  carvers  of  the 
huge  blocks  of  lava,  the  hewers-out 
with  rudest  tools  of  the  Sphinx-like 
images    of     trachyte     whose     square 


162 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

massive,  and  disdainful  faces  have  for 
unnumbered  centuries  gazed  upwards 
and  outwards  over  the  rolling,  sailless 
swell  of  the  mid-Pacific  ? 

And  the  people  of  Rapa-nui  of  to- 
day ?  you  may  ask.  Search  the  whole 
Pacific — from  Pylstaart,  the  southern 
sentinel  of  the  Friendlies,  to  the  one- 
time buccaneer-haunted,  far-away 
Pelews  ;  thence  eastward  through 
the  white-beached  coral  atolls  of  the 
Carolines  and  Marshalls,  and  south- 
wards to  the  cloud-capped  Marquesas 
and  the  sandy  stretches  of  the  Pau- 
motu — and  you  will  find  no  handsomer 
men  or  more  graceful  women  than  the 
light-skinned  people  of  Rapa-nui. 

Yet  are  they  but  the  survivors  of  a 
race  doomed — doomed  from  the  day 
that  Roggewein  in  his  clumsy,  high- 
pooped  frigate  first  saw  their  land  and 
marvelled  at  the  imperishable  relics  of 
a  dead  greatness.  With  smiling  faces 
they  welcomed  him — a  stranger  from 
an  unknown,  outside  world,  with  cut- 
lass at  waist  and  pistol  in  hand — as  a 
god  ;  he  left  them  a  legacy  of  civili- 
sation— a  hideous  and  cruel  disease 
that  swept   through  the  amiable  and 


163 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

unsuspicious  race  as  an  epidemic,  and 
slew  its  thousands,  and  scaled  with 
the  hand  of  Death  and  Silence  the 
eager  life  that  had  then  filled  the 
square  houses  of  lava  in  many  a  town 
from  the  wave-beaten  cliff's  of  Terano 
Kau  to  Ounipu  in  the  west. 

Ask  of  the  people  now,  "  Whence 
came  ye  ?  and  whose  were  the  hands 
that  fashioned  these  mighty  images 
and  carved  upon  these  stones  ?  "  and 
in  their  simple  manner  they  will 
answer,  "  From  Rapa,  under  the 
setting  sun,  came  our  fathers  ;  and 
we  were  then  a  great  people,  even  as 
the  oneone  '  of  the  beach.  .  .  .  Our 
Great  King  was  it,  he  whose  name  is 
forgotten  by  us,  that  caused  these 
temples  and  cemeteries  and  terraces 
to  be  built ;  and  it  was  in  his  time 
that  the  forgotten  fathers  of  our  fathers 
carved  from  out  of  the  stone  of  the 
quarries  of  Terano  Kau  the  great 
Silent  Faces  that  gaze  for  ever  up- 
ward to  the  sky.  .  .  .  Ai-a-ah  !  .  .  . 
But  it  was  long  ago.  .  .  .  Ah  !  a  great 
people  were  we  then  in  those  days, 
and  the  wild  people  to  the  West  called 
us  Te  tagata  te  pito  Henua  (the  people 
»  Sand. 


164 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

who  live  at  the  end  of  the  world).  .  .  . 
and  we  know  no  more," 

And  here  the  knowledge  and  tradi- 
tions of  a  broken  people  begin  and 
end. 


I. 

A  soft,  cool  morning  in  November, 
187 — .  Between  Ducie  and  Pitcairn 
Islands  two  American  whaleships 
cruise  lazily  along  to  the  gentle 
breath  of  the  south-east  trades,  when 
the  look-out  from  both  vessels  see  a 
third  sail  bearing  down  upon  them. 
In  a  few  hours  she  is  close  enough  to 
be  recognised  as  one  of  the  luckiest 
sperm  whalers  of  the  fleet — the  brig 
Pocahontas^  of  Martha's  Vineyard. 

Within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  the 
two  ships — the  Nassau  and  the  Dagget 
— the  new-comer  backs  her  fore-yard 
and  hauls  up  her  mainsail.  A  cheer 
rises  from  the  ships.  She  wants  to 
gam,  i.e.,  to  gossip.  With  eager 
hands  four  boats  are  lowered  from 
the  two  ships,  and  the  captains  and 
second  mates  of  each  are  racing  for 
the  Pocahontas. 


165 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

The  skipper  of  the  brig,  after 
shaking  hands  with  his  visitors  and 
making  the  usual  inquiries  as  to  their 
luck,  number  of  days  out  from  New 
Bedford,  &c.,  led  the  way  to  his 
cabin,  and,  calling  his  Portuguese 
steward,  had  liquor  and  a  box  of 
cigars  brought  out.  The  captain  of 
the  Pocahontas  was  a  little,  withered- 
up  old  man  with  sharp,  deep-set  eyes 
of  brightest  blue,  and  had  the  reputa- 
tion of  possessing  the  most  fiery  and 
excitable  temper  of  any  of  the  captains 
of  the  sixty  or  seventy  American 
whaleships  that  in  those  days  cruised 
the  Pacific  from  the  west  coast  of 
South  America  to  Guam  in  the 
Ladrones. 

After  drinking  some  of  his  potent 
New  England  rum  with  his  visitors, 
and  having  answered  all  the  queries, 
the  master  of  the  Pocahontas  inquired 
if  they  had  seen  anything  of  a  Chilian 
man-of-war  further  to  the  eastward. 
No,  they  had  not. 

"  Then  just  settle  down,  gentlemen, 
for  awhile,  and  I'll  tell  you  one  of  the 
curiousest  things  that  I  ever  saw  or 
heard  of  I've  logced  partiklers  of  the 
whole   business,   and   when   I   get    to 


1 66 


BY    REEF    AND      PALM, 

Oahu  (Honol  ulu)  I  mean  to  nar-rate 
just  all  I  do  know  to  Father  Damon 
of  the  Honolulu  Friend.  Thar's 
nothing  like  a  newspaper  fur  showin' 
a  man  up  when  he's  been  up  to  any 
onnatural  villainy  and  thinks  no  one 
will  ever  know  anything  about  it.  So 
just  listen  and  take  hold." 

The  two  captains  nodded,  and  he 
told  them  this. 

Ten  days  previously,  when  close  in 
to  barren  and  isolated  Sala-y-Gomez, 
the  Pocahontas  had  spoken  the  Chilian 
corvette  O'Higgins,  bound  from  Easter 
Island  to  Valparaiso.  The  captain  of 
the  corvette  entertained  the  American 
master  courteously,  and  explained  his 
ship's  presence  so  far  to  the  eastward 
by  stating  that  the  Government  had 
instructed  him  to  call  at  Easter  Island 
and  pick  up  an  Englishman  in  the 
Chilian  service,  who  had  been  sent 
there  to  examine  and  report  on  the 
colossal  statues  and  mysterious  carvings 
of  that  lonely  island.  The  English- 
man, as  Commander  Gallegos  said, 
was  a  valued  servant  of  the  Republic, 
and  had  for  some  years  served  in  its 
navy  as  a  surgeon  on  board  EI  Almi- 
rante  Cochrane,  the  flagship.      He  had 


167 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

left  Valparaiso  in  the  whaleship  Corn- 
boy  with  the  intention  of  remaining 
three  months  on  the  island.  At  the 
end  of  that  time  a  war  vessel  was  to 
call  and  convey  him  back  to  Chili. 
But  in  less  than  two  months  the. 
Republic  was  in  the  throes  of  a 
deadly  struggle  with  Peru — here  the 
commander  of  the  O^Higgins  bowed 
to  the  American  captain,  and,  pointing 
to  a  huge  scar  that  traversed  his 
bronzed  face  from  temple  to  chin, 
said,  "in  which  I  had  the  honour  to 
receive  this,  and  promotion  " — and 
nearly  two  years  had  elapsed  ere  the 
Government  had  time  to  think  again 
of  the  English  scientist  and  his  mission. 
Peace  restored,  the  O'Higgins  was 
ordered  to  proceed  to  the  island  and 
bring  him  back;  and  as  the  character 
of  the  natives  was  not  well  known, 
and  it  was  feared  he  might  have  been 
killed,  Commander  Gallegos  was  in- 
structed to  execute  summary  justice 
upon  the  people  of  the  island  if  such 
was  the  case. 

But,  the  Chilian  officer  said,  on 
reaching  the  island  he  had  found  the 
natives  to  be  very  peaceable  and  in- 
offensive, and,  although  much  alarmed 
at  the  appearance  of  his  armed  landing 


i68 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

party  from  the  corvette,  they  had  given 
him  a  letter  from  the  Englishman,  and 

had  satisfied  him  that  Dr.  Francis 

had  remained  with  them  for  some 
twelve  months  only,  and  had  then 
left  the  island  in  a  passing  whaleship, 
and  Commander  Gallegos,  making 
them  suitable  presents,  bade  them 
good-bye,  and  steamed  away  for  Val- 
paraiso. 

This  was  all  the  polite  little  com- 
mander had  to  say,  and,  after  a  farewell 
glass  of  wine,  his  visitor  rose  to  go, 
when  the  captain  of  the  corvette 
casually  inquired  if  the  Pocahontas 
was  likely  to  call  at  the  island. 

"I  ask  you,"  he  said  in  his  perfect 
English,  "  because  of  one  of  my  men,  a 
bluejacket,  who  deserted  there.  You, 
senor,  may  possibly  meet  with  him 
there.  Yet  he  is  of  no  value,  and  he 
is  not  a  sailor,  and  but  a  lad.  He  was 
very  ill  most  of  the  time,  and  this  was 
his  first  voyage.  I  took  him  ashore 
with  me  in  my  boat,  as  he  besought 
me  eagerly  to  do  so,  and  the  little 
devil  ran  away  and  hid,  or  was  hidden 
by  the  natives." 

"Why  didn't  you  get  him  back?" 
asked  the  captain  of  the  Pocahontas. 


169 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

"  Por  Dios  !  that  was  easy  enough, 
but" — and  the  commander  raised  his 
eyebrows  and  shrugged  his  shoulders 
— "  of  what  use  ?  He  was  no  use  to 
the  corvette.  Better  for  him  to  stay 
there,  and  perhaps  recover,  than  to 
die  on  board  the  O' Higgins  and  be 
thrown  to  the  blue  sharks.  Possibly, 
senor,  you  may  find  him  well,  and  it 
may  suit  you  to  take  him  to  your  good 
ship  and  teach  him  the  business  of 
catching  the  whale.  My  trade  is  to 
show  my  crew  how  to  fight,  and  such 
as  he  are  of  no  value  for  that." 

Then  the  two  captains  bade  each 
other  farewell,  and  in  another  hour 
the  redoubtable  O^Higgins,  with  a 
black  trail  of  smoke  streaming  astern, 
was  ten  miles  away  on  her  course  to 
Valparaiso. 


A  week  after  the  Pocahontas  lay 
becalmed  close  in  to  the  lee  side  of 
Rapa-nui,  and  within  sight  of  the 
houses  of  the  principal  village.  The 
captain,  always  ready  to  get  a  "  green  " 
hand,  was  thinking  of  the  chances  of 
his  securing  the  Chilian  deserter,  and 
decided  to  lower  a  boat  and  try. 
Taking  four  men  with  him,  he  pulled 


170 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 


ashore   and  landed   at    the    village  of 
Hagaroa. 


II. 

Some  sixty  or  seventy  natives  clus- 
tered round  the  boat  as  she  touched 
the  shore.  With  smiling  faces  and 
outstretched  hands  they  surrounded 
the  captain  and  pressed  upon  him 
their  simple  gifts  of  ripe  bananas  and 
fish  baked  in  leaves,  begging  him  to 
first  eat  a  little  and  then  walk  with 
them  to  Mataveri,  their  largest  village, 
distant  a  mile,  where  preparations 
were  being  made  to  welcome  him 
formally.  The  skipper,  nothing  loth, 
bade  his  crew  not  to  go  too  far  away 
in  their  rambles,  and,  accompanied 
by  his  boatsteerer,  was  about  to  set 
off  with  the  natives,  when  he  remem- 
bered the  object  of  his  visit,  and  asked 
a  big,  well-made  woman,  the  only 
native  present  that  could  speak  English, 
*'  Where  is  the  man  you  hid  from  the 
man-of-war  ? " 

There  was  a  dead  silence,  and  for 
nearly  half  a  minute  no  one  spoke. 
The  keen  blue  eyes  of  the  American 


171 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

looked  from  one  face  to  another  in- 
quiringly, and  then  settled  on  the  fat, 
good-natured  features  of  Varua,  the 
big  woman. 

Holding  her  hands,  palms  upwards, 
to  the  captain,  she  endeavoured-  to 
speak,  and  then,  to  his  astonishment, 
he  saw  that  her  dark  eyes  were  filled 
with  tears.  And  then,  as  if  moved 
with  some  sudden  and  sorrowful 
emotion,  a  number  of  other  women 
and  young  girls,  murmuring  softly  in 
pitying  tones,  '■'■  E  mate  !  E  mate!^^^ 
came  to  his  side  and  held  their  hands 
out  to  him  with  the  same  supplicating 
gesture. 

The  captain  was  puzzled.  For  all 
his  island  wanderings  and  cruises  he 
had  no  knowledge  of  any  Polynesian 
dialect,  and  the  tearful  muteness  of 
the  fat  Varua  was  still  unbroken.  At 
last  she  placed  one  hand  on  his  sleeve, 
and,  pointing  landward  with  the  other, 
said,  in  her  gentle  voice,  "  Come,"  and 
taking  his  hand  in  hers,  she  led  the 
way,  the  rest  of  the  people  following 
in  silence. 

For  about  half  a  mile  they  walked 
behind  the  captain  and  his  boatsteerer 
and  the  woman  Varua  without  utter- 
»  "  Dead  !     Dead  !  " 


172 


By    REEF    AND    PALM. 

ing  a  word.  Presently  Varua  stopped 
and  called  out  the  name  of  "  Taku  " 
in  a  low  voice. 

A  fine,  handsome  native,  partly 
clothed  in  European  sailor's  dress, 
stepped  apart  from  the  others  and 
came  to  her. 

Turning  to  the  captain,  she  said, 
"This  is  Taku  the  Sailor.  He  can 
speak  a  little  English  and  much 
Spanish.  I  tell  him  now  to  come 
with  us,  for  he  hath  a  paper." 

Although  not  understanding  the 
relevancy  of  her  remark,  the  captain 
nodded,  and  then  with  gentle  insist- 
ence Varua  and  the  other  women 
urged  him  on,  and  they  again  set  out. 


A  few  minutes  more,  and  they  were 
at  the  foot  of  one  of  the  massive- 
stoned  and  ancient  papaku,  or 
cemeteries,  on  the  walls  of  which 
were  a  number  of  huge  images  carved 
from  trachyte,  and  representing  the 
trunk  of  the  human  body.  Some  or 
the  figures  bore  on  their  heads  crowns 
of  red  tufa,  and  the  aspect  of  all  was 
towards  the  ocean.  At  the  foot  of 
the  wall  of  the  papaku  were  a 
number  of  prone  figures,  with  hands 


173 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

and  arms  sculptured  in  low  relief,  the 
outspread  fingers  clasping  the  hips. 

About  a  cable  length  from  the  wall 
stood  two  stone  houses — memorials  of 
the  olden  time — and  it  was  to  these 
that  Varua  and  the  two  white  men, 
attended  now  by  women  only,  directed 
their  steps. 

The  strange,  unearthly  stillness  of 
the  place,  the  low  whispers  of  the 
W3men,  the  array  of  colossal  figures 
with  sphinx-like  faces  set  to  the  sea, 
and  the  unutterable  air  of  sadness  that 
enwrapped  the  whole  scene  overawed 
even  the  unimaginative  mind  of  the 
rough  whaling  captain,  and  he  expe- 
rienced a  curious  feeling  of  relief  when 
his  gentle-voiced  guide  entered  through 
the  open  doorway  the  largest  of  the 
two  houses,  and,  in  a  whisper,  bade 
him  follow. 

A  delightful  sense  of  coolness  was 
his  first  sensation  on  entering,  and 
then  with  noiseless  step  the  other 
women  followed  and  seated  themselves 
on  the  ground. 

Still  clasping  his  hand,  Varua  led 
him  to  the  farther  end  of  the  house 
and   pointed    to    a    motionless    figure 


174 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

that  lay  on  a  couch  of  mats,  covered 
with  a  large  piece  of  navy-blue  calico. 
At  each  side  of  the  couch  sat  a  young 
native  girl,  and  their  dark,  luminous 
eyes,  shining  star-like  from  out  the 
wealth  of  black,  glossy  hair  that  fell 
upon  their  bronzed  shoulders,  turned 
wonderingly  upon  the  stranger  who 
had  broken  in  upon  their  watch. 

Motioning  the  girls  aside,  Varua 
released  her  hold  of  the  white  man's 
hand  and  drew  the  cloth  from  off  the 
figure  and  the  seaman's  pitying  glance 
fell  upon  the  pale,  sweet  features  of  a 
young  white  girl. 

But  for  the  unmistakable  pallid  hue 
of  death  he  thought  at  first  that  she 
slept.  In  the  thin,  delicate  hands, 
crossed  upon  her  bosom,  there  was 
placed,  after  the  manner  of  those  of 
her  faith,  a  small  metal  crucifix.  Her 
hair,  silky  and  jet  black,  was  short 
like  a  man's,  and  the  exquisitely- 
modelled  features,  which  even  the 
coldness  of  death  had  not  robbed  of 
their  beauty,  showed  the  Spanish  blood 
that,  but  a  few  hours  before,  had  coursed 
through  her  veins. 

Slowly  the  old  seaman  drew  the 
covering  over  the  still   features,  and. 


175 


BV    REEF    AND    PALM. 

with  an  unusual  emotion  stirring  his 
rude  nature,  he  rose,  and,  followed  by 
Varua,  walked  outside  and  sat  upon  a 
broken  pillar  of  lava  that  lay  under 
the  wall  of  the  papa\u. 

Calling  his  boatsteerer,  he  ordered 
him  to  return  to  the  beach  and  go  oft 
to  the  ship  with  instructions  to  the 
mate  to  have  a  coffin  made  as  quickly 
as  possible  and  send  it  ashore  ;  and 
then,  at  a  glance  from  Varua,  who 
smiled  a  grave  approval  as  she  listened 
to  his  orders,  he  followed  her  and  the 
man  she  called  Taku  into  the  smaller 
of  the  two  houses. 

Round  about  the  inside  walls  of 
this  ancient  dwelling  of  a  forgotten 
race  were  placed  a  number  of  sea- 
men's chests  made  of  cedar  and 
camphor  wood — the  lares  zr\6.  penates  of 
most  Polynesian  houses.  The  gravelled 
floor  was  covered  with  prettily-orna- 
mented mats  oi fala  (the  screw-palm). 

Seating  herself,  with  Taku  the 
Sailor,  on  the  mats,  Varua  motioned 
the  captain  to  one  of  the  boxes,  and 
then  told  him  a  tale  that  moved  him 
— rough,  fierce,  and  tyrannical  as  was 
his  nature — to  the  deepest  pity. 


176 


,BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 
III. 

"  It  is  not  yet  twenty  days  since  the 
fighting  fahi  afi  (steamer)  came  here, 
and  we  of  Mataveri  saw  the  boat  full 
of  armed  men  land  on  the  beach  at 
Hagaroa.  Filled  with  fear  were  we  ; 
but  yet  as  we  had  done  no  wrong  we 
stood  on  the  beach  to  welcome.  And, 
ere  the  armed  men  had  left  the  boat, 
we  knew  them  to  be  the  Sipajiiola 
from  Chili — the  same  as  those  that 
came  here  ten  years  ago  in  three  ships 
and  seized  and  bound  three  hundred 
and  six  of  our  men  and  carried  them 
away  for  slaves  to  the  land  of  the  Tae 
Manu,  and  of  whom  none  but  four 
ever  returned  to  Rapa-nui.  And  then 
we  trembled  again." 

(She  spoke  of  the  cruel  outrage  of 
1862,  when  three  Peruvian  slave-ships 
took  away  over  three  hundred  islanders 
to  perish  on  the  guano-fields  of  the 
Chincha  Islands.) 

"  The  chief  of  the  ship  was  a  little 
man,  and  he  called  out  to  us  in  the 
tongue  of  Chili,  '  Have  no  fear,'  and 
took  a  little  gun  from  out  its  case  of 
skin  that  hung  by  his  side  and  giving 
it  to  a  man  in  the  boat,  stepped  over 
to  us  and  took  our  hands  in  his. 


177  M 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM^ 

"  Is  there  none  among  ye  that  speak 
my  tongue  ?"  he  said  quickly. 

"  Now,  this  man  here,  Taku  the 
Sailor,  speaketh  the  tongue  of  Chili, 
but  he  feared  to  tell  it,  lest  they  might 
take  him  away  for  a  sailor  ;  so  he 
held  his  lips  tight. 

"  Then  I,  who  for  six  years  dwelt 
with  English  people  at  Tahiti,  was 
pushed  forward  by  those  behind  me 
and  made  to  talk  in  English  ;  and  lo  ! 
the  little  man  spoke  in  your  tongue 
even  as  quick  as  he  did  in  that  of 
Chili.     And  then  he  told  us  that  he 

came  for  Farani.^ 

•  •  • 

"  Now  this  Farani  was  a  young 
white  man  of  Peretafiia  (England),  big 
and  strong.  He  came  to  us  a  year 
and  a  half  ago.  He  was  rich  and  had 
with  him  chests  filled  with  presents 
for  us  of  Rapa-nui  ;  and  he  told  us 
that  he  came  to  live  awhile  among  us, 
and  look  upon  the  houses  of  stone 
and  the  Faces  of  the  Silent  that  gaze 
out  upon  the  sea.  For  a  year  he 
dwelt  with  us  and  became  as  one  of 
ourselves  and  we  loved  him  ;  and  then 
because  no  ship  came  he  began  to 
weary  and  be  sad.  At  last  a  ship — like 
'  Frank. 


178 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM, 

thine,  one  that  hunts  for  the  whale — 
came,  and  Farani  called  us  together, 
and  placed  a  letter  in  the  hands  of  the 
chief  at  Mataveri  and  said, '  If  it  so  be 
that  a  ship  cometh  from  Chili  give 
these  my  words  to  the  captain,  and  all 
will  be  well.'  Then  he  bade  us  fare- 
well and  was  gone. 

"All  this  I  said  in  quick  words,  and 
then  we  gave  to  the  little  fighting  chief 
the  letter  Farani  had  written.  When 
he  had  counted  the  words  in  the  letter 
he  said,  '  Bueno,  it  is  well,'  and  called 
to  his  men,  and  they  brought  out  many 
gifts  for  us  from  the  boat — cloth,  and 
garments  for  men  and  women,  and 
two  great  bags  of  canvas  filled  with 
tobacco.  Ai-a-ah  !  many  presents  he 
gave  us  ;  this  because  of  the  good 
words  Farani  had  set  down  in  the 
letter.  Then  the  little  chief  said  to 
me,  '  Let  these  my  men  walk  where 
they  list,  and  I  will  go  with  thee  to 
Mataveri  and  talk  with  the  chief.' 

"  So  the  sailors  came  out  of  the 
boats  carrying  their  guns  and  swords 
in  their  hands,  but  the  little  chief, 
whose  avagutu  (moustache)  stuck 
out  on  each  side  of  his  face  like  the 
wings  of  a  flying-fish  when  it  leaps  in 


179 


BY     REEF    AND    PALM. 

terror  from  the  mouth  of  the  hungry 
bonito,  spoke  angrily,  and  they  laid  their 
guns  and  swords  back  in  the  boats. 

"  So  the  sailors  went  hither  and 
thither  with  our  young  men  and  girls ; 
and,  although  at  that  time  I  knew  it 
not,  she  who  now  is  not,  was  one  of 
them,  and  walked  alone. 

"  Then  I,  and  Taku  the  Sailor,  and 
the  little  sea-chief  came  to  the  houses 
of  Mataveri,  and  he  stayed  awhile  and 
spoke  good  words  to  us.  And  we, 
although  we  fear  the  men  of  Chili  for 
the  wrong  they  once  did  us,  were  yet 
glad  to  listen,  for  we  also  are  of  their 
faith. 

As  we  talked,  there  came  inside  the 
house  a  young  girl  named  Temeteri, 
whom,  when  Farani  had  been  with 
us  for  two  months,  he  had  taken 
for  wife,  and  she  bore  him  a  son. 
But  from  the  day  that  he  had  sailed 
away  she  became  sick  with  grief;  and 
when,  after  many  months,  she  had 
told  me  that  Farani  had  said  he  would 
return  to  her,  my  hc;art  was  heavy; 
for  1  know  the  ways  of  white  men 
with  us  women  of  brown  skins.  Yet 
I  feared  to  tell  her  he  lied  and  would 
return     no    more.      Now,     this    girl 


180 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

Temeteri  was  sought  after  by  a  man 
named  Huarani,  the  son  of  Heremai, 
who  desired  to  marry  her  now  that 
Farani  had  gone,  and  he  urged  her  to 
question  the  chief  of  the  fighting  ship 
and  ask  him  if  Farani  would  return. 

"  So  I  spoke  of  Temeteri.  He 
laughed  and  shook  his  head,  and  said, 
'  Nay,  Farani  the  Englishman  will 
return  no  more ;  but  yet  one  so 
beautiful  as  she,'  and  he  pointed  to 
Temeteri,  '  should  have  many  lovers 
and  know  no  grief.  Let  her  marry 
again  and  forget  him  ;  and  this  is  my 
marriage  gift  to  her,'  and  he  threw  a 
big  golden  coin  upon  the  mat  on  which 
the  girl  sat. 

"  She  took  it  in  her  hand  and  threw 
it  far  out  through  the  doorway  with 
bitter  words,  and  rose  and  went  away 
to  her  child. 

"  Then  the  little  captain  went  back 
to  the  boat  and  called  his  men  to 
him,  and  lo  !  one  was  gone.  Ah  !  he 
was  angry,  and  a  great  scar  that  ran 
down  one  side  of  his  face  grew  red 
with  rage.  But  soon  he  laughed  and 
said  to  us,  '  See,  there  be  one  of  my 
people  hidden  away  from  me.  Yet 
he  is  but  a  boy  and  sick  ;  and  I  care 


I8l 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

not  to  Stay  and  search  for  him.  Let 
him  be  thy  care  so  that  he  wanders  not 
away  and  perishes  among  the  broken 
lava  ;  he  will  be  in  good  hands  among 
the  people  of  Rapa-nui.'  With  that 
he  bade  us  farewell,  and  in  but  a 
little  time  the  great  fighting  ship  had 
gone  away  to  the  rising  sun. 

"All  that  day  and  the  next  we 
searched,  but  found  not  him  who  had 
hidden  away  ;  but  in  the  night  of  the 
second  day,  when  it  rained  heavily, 
and  Taku  (who  is  my  brother's  son) 
and  I  and  my  two  children  worked  at 
the  making  of  a  kupega  (net),  he 
whom  we  had  sought  came  to  the 
door.  And  as  we  looked  our  hearts 
were  filled  with  pity,  for  as  he  put  out 
his  hands  to  us  he  staggered  and  fell 
to  the  ground. 

"  So  Taku — who  is  a  man  of  a  good 
heart — and  I  lifted  him  up  and  carried 
him  to  a  bed  of  soft  mats,  and  as  I 
placed  my  hand  on  his  bosom  to  see 
if  he  was  dead,  lo  !  it  was  soft  as  a 
woman's,  and  I  saw  that  the  stranger 
was  a  young  girl  ! 

"I  took  from  her  the  wet  garments 
and  brought  warm  clothes  of  marnoe 
(blankets),   and  Taku    made   a    great 


I»2 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

fire,  and  we  rubbed  her  cold  body  and 
her  hands  and  feet  till  her  life  came 
back  to  her  again,  and  she  sat  up  and 
ate  a  little  beaten-up  taro.  When 
the  night  and  the  dawn  touched  she 
slept  again. 

"  The  sun  was  high  when  the  white 
girl  awoke,  and  fear  leapt  into  her  eyes 
when  she  saw  the  house  filled  with 
people  who  came  to  question  Taku 
and  me  about  the  stranger.  With 
them  came  the  girl  Temeteri,  whose 
head  was  still  filled  with  foolish 
thoughts  of  Farani,  her  white  lover. 

"  I  went  to  her,  put  my  arm  around 
her,  and  spoke,  but  though  she  smiled 
and  answered  in  a  little  voice,  I  under- 
stood her  not,  for  I  knew  none  of  the 
tongue  of  Chili.  But  yet  she  leaned 
her  head  against  my  bosom,  and  her 
eyes  that  were  as  big  and  bright  as 
Fetuaho,  the  star  of  the  morning, 
looked  up  into  mine  and  smiled 
through  their  tears. 

"  There  was  a  great  buzzing  of  talk 
among  the  women.  Some  came  to 
her  and  touched  hands  and  forehead, 
and  said,  'Let  thy  trembling  cease  ;  we 


t83 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

of  Rapa-nui  will  be  kind  to  the  white 
girl.' 

"  And  as  the  people  thronged  about 
her  and  talked,  she  shook  her  head  and 
her  eyes  sought  mine  and  hot  tears 
plashed  upon  my  hand.  Then  the 
mother  of  Temeteri  raised  her  voice 
and  called  to  Taku  the  Sailor  and 
said,  '  O  Taku,  thou  who  knowest  her 
tongue,  ask  her  of  Farani,  my  white 
son,  the  husband  of  my  daughter.' 

"  The  young  girls  in  the  house 
laughed  scornfully  at  old  Pohere,  for 
some  of  them  had  loved  Farani,  who 
yet  had  put  them  all  aside  for  Teme- 
teri, whose  beauty  exceeded  theirs  ; 
and  so  they  hated  her  and  laughed 
at  her  mother.  Then  Taku,  being 
pressed  by  old  Pohere,  spoke  in  the 
tongue  of  Chili — but  not  of  Temeteri. 

"Ah  !  She  sprang  to  her  feet  and 
talked  then,  and  the  flying  words 
chased  one  another  from  her  lips  ;  and 
these  things  told  she  to  Taku  : — She 
had  hidden  among  the  broken  lava  and 
watched  the  little  captain  come  back  to 
the  boat  and  bid  us  farewell.  Then 
when  night  came  she  had  crept  out  and 
gone  far  over  to  the  great  papakti,  and 
lay  down  to  hide  again,  for  she  feared 


184 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

the  fighting  ship  might  return  to  seek 
her.  And  all  that  day  she  lay  hidden 
in  the  lava  till  night  fell  upon  her 
again,  and  hunger  drove  her  to  seek 
the  faces  of  men.  In  the  rain  she  all 
but  perished,  till  God  brought  her 
feet  to  this  my  house. 

"  Then  said  Taku  the  Sailor,  'Why 
didst  thou  flee  from  the  ship  ? ' 

"The  white  girl  put  her  hands  to 
her  face  and  wept,  and  said,  '  Bring 
me  my  jacket.' 

"  I  gave  to  her  the  blue  sailor's 
jacket,  and  from  inside  of  it  she  took 
a  little  flat  thing  and  placed  it  in  her 
bosom. 

•  •  •  • 

"Again  said  old  Poh^re  to  Taku,  'O 
man  of  slow  tongue,  ask  her  of  Farani.' 
So  he  asked  in  this  wise  : 

•"See,  O  White  Girl,  that  is  Pohere, 
the  mother  of  Temeteri,  who  bore  a 
son  to  the  white  man  that  came  here 
to  look  upon  the  Silent  Faces ;  and 
because  he  came  from  thy  land,  and 
because  of  the  heart  of  Temeteri  which 
is  dried  up  for  love  of  him  does  this 
foolish  old  woman  ^sk  thee  if  thou 
hast  seen  him  ;  for  long  months  ago 
he  left  Rapa-nui.  In  our  tongue  we 
call  him  Farani.* 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

*'The  girl  looked  at  Taku  the  Sailor, 
and  her  lips  moved,  but  no  words  came. 
Then  from  her  bosom  she  took  the 
little  flat  thing  and  held  it  to  him, 
but  sickness  was  in  her  hand  so  that 
it  trembled,  and  that  which  she  held 
fell  to  the  ground.  So  Taku  stooped 
and  picked  it  up  from  where  it  lay- 
on  the  mat  and  looked,  and  his  eyes 
blazed,  and  he  shouted  out  '  Aue  !  '  for 
it  was  the  face  of  Farani  that  looked 
into  his  !  And  as  he  held  it  up  in 
his  hand  to  the  people  they,  too, 
shouted  in  wonder  ;  and  then  the  girl 
Temeteri  cast  aside  those  that  stood 
about  her  and  tore  it  from  his  hand 
and  fled. 

"  '  Who  is  she  ?  *  said  the  white  girl, 
in  a  weak  voice  to  Taku,  'and  why 
hath  she  robbed  me  of  that  which  is 
dear  to  me  ? '  and  Taku  was  ashamed 
and  turned  his  face  away  from  her 
because  of  two  things — his  heart  was 
sore  for  Temeteri,  who  is  a  blood 
relation,  and  was  shamed  because  her 
white  lover  had  deserted  her  ;  and  he 
was  full  of  pity  for  the  white  girl's 
tears.     So  he  said  nought. 

"  The  girl  raised  herself  and  her 
hand  caught  Taku  by  the  arm,  and 
these  were  her  words  :  '  O  man,  for 


i86 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

the  love  of  Jesu  Christ,  tell  me  what 
was  this  woman  Temeteri  to  my 
husband  ? ' 

"Now  Taku  the  Sailor  was  sore 
troubled,  and  felt  it  hard  to  hurt  her 
heart,  yet  he  said,  '  Was  Farani,  the 
Englishman,  thy  husband  ?' 

"  She  wept  again,  '  He  was  my 
husband.' 

"  '  Why  left  he  one  as  fair  as  thee  ? ' 
said  Taku,  in  wonder. 

"  She  shook  her  head.  '  I  know  not, 
except  he  loved  to  look  upon  strange 
lands  ;  yet  he  loved  me.' 

"  *  He  is  a  bad  man,'  said  Taku. 
*  He  loved  others  as  well  as  thee. 
The  girl  that  fled  but  now  with  his 
picture  was  wife  to  him  here.  He 
loved  her  and  she  bore  him  a  son.' 

"  The  girl's  head  fell  on  my  shoulder 
and  her  eyes  closed,  and  she  became 
as  dead,  and  lo  !  in  a  little  while  as 
she  strove  to  speak  blood  poured  from 
her  mouth  and  ran  down  over  her 
bosom. 

"'It  is  the  hand  of  Death,'  said 
Taku  the  Sailor, 

"Where  she  now  lies,  there  died 
she,  at  about  the  hour  when  the  people 
of  Vaihou  saw  the  sails  of  thy  ship. 


187 


BY    REEF   AND    PALM. 

"We  have  no  priest  here,  for  the 
good  father  that  was  here  three  years 
ago  is  now  silent ;  yet  did  Taku  and 
I  pray  with  her.  And  ere  she  was 
silent  she  said  she  would  set  down 
some  words  on  paper  ;  so  Alrema,  my 
little  daughter,  hastened  to  Mataveri, 
and  the  chief  sent  back  some  paper 
and  vai  tuhi  (ink)  that  had  belonged 
to  the  good  priest.  So  with  weak 
hand  she  set  down  some  words,  but 
even  as  she  wrote  she  rose  up  and 
threw  out  her  hands,  and  called  out, 
•Francisco,  Francisco  !  '  and  fell  back, 
and  was  silent  for  ever." 


IV. 

The  captain  of  the  Pocahontas 
dashed  the  now  fast-falling  tears  from 
his  eyes,  and  with  his  rough  old  heart 
swelling  with  pity  for  the  poor 
wanderer,  took  from  Taku  the  sheet 
of  paper  on  which  the  heart-broken 
girl's  last  words  were  traced. 

Ere  he  could  read  it  a  low  murmur 
of  voices  outside  told  him  his  crew 
had  returned.  They  carried  a  rude 
wooden  shell ;  and  then    with    bared 


1 88 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

heads    the    captain    and    boatsteerer 
entered  the  house  where  she  lay. 

Again  the  old  man  raised  the  piece 
of  navy  blue  cloth  from  off  the  sweet, 
sad  face,  and  a  heavy  tear  dropped 
down  upon  her  forehead.  Then, 
aided  by  the  gentle,  sympathetic 
women,  his  task  was  soon  finished,  and 
two  of  his  crew  entered  and  carried 
their  burden  to  its  grave.  Service 
there  was  none  ;  only  the  prayers  and 
tears  of  the  brown  women  of  Rapa- 
nui. 


Ere  he  said  farewell  the  captain  of 
the  whaleship  placed  money  in  the 
hands  of  Varua  and  Taku.  They 
drew  back,  hurt  and  mortified.  See- 
ing his  mistake,  the  seaman  desired 
Varua  to  give  the  money  to  the  girl 
Temeteri. 

"  Nay,  sir,"  said  Varua,  "  she  would 
but  give  me  bitter  words.  Even  when 
she  who  is  now  silent  was  not  yet  cold 
Temeteri  came  to  the  door  of  the 
house  where  she  lay  and  spat  twice  on 
the  ground,  and  taking  up  gravel  in 
her  hand  cast  it  at  her  and  cursed  her 
in  the  name  of  our  old  heathen  gods. 
And  as  for  money,  we  here  in   Rapa- 


l8q 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

nui  need  it  not.     May  Christ  protect 
thee  on  the  sea.     Farewell  !  " 

The  captain  of  the  Pocahontas  rose 
and  came  to  the  cabin  table,  and 
motioning  to  his  guests  to  fill  their 
glasses,  said — 

" 'Tis  a  real  sad  story,  gentlemen, 
and  if  I  should  ever  run  across  Doctor 
Francis — I  should  talk  some  to  him. 
But  see  here.  Here  is  my  log  ;  my 
mate,  who  is  a  fancy  writist,  wrote  it 
at  my  dictation.  I  can't  show  you  the 
letter  that  the  pore  creature  herself 
wrote  ;  that  I  ain't  going  to  show  to 
any  one." 

The  two  captains  rose  and  stood 
beside  him  and  read  the  entry  in  the 
log  of  the  Pocahontas. 

'■'■November  28,  187-. 
"  This  day  I  landed  at  Easter  Island, 
to  try  and  obtain  as  a  '  green '  hand  a 
young  Chilian  seaman  who,  the  captain 
of  the  Chilian  corvette  O' Higgins  in- 
formed mc,  had  run  away  there.  On 
landing  I  was  shown  the  body  of  a 
young  girl,  whom  tlie  natives  stated 
to  be  the  deserter.  She  had  died  that 
morning.  Buried  her  as  dccentlv  as 
circumstances  would    permit.     From 


190 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

a  letter  she  wrote  on  the  morning  of 
her  death  I  learned  her  name  to  be 

Senora  Teresa  T .     Her  husband, 

Dr.  Francis  T ,  was  an  Englishman 

in  the  service  of  the  Chilian  Republic. 
He  was  sent  out  on  a  scientific  mission 
to  the  island,  and  his  wife  followed  him 
in  the  O'Higgins  disguised  as  a  blue- 
jacket.    I    should    take   her    to    have 
been  about  nineteen  years  of  age. 
"  Spence  Eldridge,  Master, 
"  Manual  Legaspe,  2nd  officer. 
"  Brig  Pocahontas  of  Martha's  Vine- 
yard, U.S.A." 

"  Well,  that's  curious  now,"  said  the 
skipper  of  the  Nassau^  "  why,  I  knew 
that  man.  He  left  the  island  in  the 
King  Darius,  of  New  Bedford,  and 
landed  at  Ponape  in  the  Caroline 
Group,  whar  those  underground  ruins 
are  at  Metalanien  Harbour.  Guess 
he  wanted  to  potter  around  there  a  bit. 
But  he  got  inter  some  sorter  trouble 
among  the  natives  there  an'  he  got 
shot." 

"  Aye,"  said  the  captain  of  the 
Dagget,  "I  remember  the  affair.  I 
was  mate  of  the  Jostephine,  and  we 
were  lying  at  Jakoits  Harbour  when 
he  was  killed,  and  now  I  remember 


191 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

the  name  too.     Waal,  he  wasn't  much 
account  anyhow." 

Ten  years  ago  a  wandering  white 
man  stood,  with  Taku  the  Sailor,  at 
the  base  of  the  wall  of  the  great 
pnpiiku,  and  the  native  pointed  out 
the  last  resting-place  of  the  wanderer. 
There,  under  the  shadow  of  the  Silent 
Faces  of  Stone  the  brave  and  loving 
heart  that  dared  so  much  is  at  peace 
for  ever. 


192 


Brantley   of  Vahitahi, 


NE  day  a  trading  vessel 
lay  becalmed  ofF  Tata- 
koto,  in  the  Paumotu 
Archipelago,  and  the 
captain  and  supercargo, 
taking  a  couple  of  na- 
tive sailors  with  them, 
went  ashore  at  dawn  to 
catch  some  turtle.  The 
turtle  were  plentiful  and 
easily  caught,  and  after 
half  a  dozen  had  been 
-^^VD  put  in  the  boat,  the  two 
S^^?i  white  men  strolled  along 
the  white  hard  beach. 
The  captain,  old,  griz- 
zled, and  grim,  seemed  to  know  the 
place  well,  and  led  the  way. 

The  island  is  very  narrow,  and  as 


193 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

they  left  the  beach  and  gained  the- 
shade  of  the  forest  of  cocoanuts  that 
grew  to  the  margin  of  high-water  mark 
they  could  see,  between  the  tall,  stately 
palms,  the  placid  waters  of  the  lagoon, 
and  a  mile  or  so  across,  the  inner  beach 
of  the  weather  side  of  the  island. 

For  a  quarter  of  a  mile  or  so  the 
two  men  walked  on  till  the  widest 
part  of  the  island  was  reached.  Here, 
under  the  shadow  of  some  giant  puka 
trees,  the  old  skipper  stopped  and  sat 
down  on  a  roughly  hewn  slab  of 
coral,  the  remains  of  one  of  those 
marae  or  heathen  temples  that  are  to 
be  found  anywhere  in  the  islands  of 
Eastern  Polynesia. 

"I  knew  this  place  well  once,"  he 
said,  as  he  pulled  out  his  pipe.  "  I 
used  to  come  here  when  I  was  sailing 
one  of  Brander's  vessels  out  of  Tahiti. 
As  we  have  done  now  we  did  then — 
came  here  for  turtle.  No  natives 
have  lived  here  for  the  past  forty 
years.  Did  you  ever  hear  of 
Brantley  ?" 

"  Yes,"  answered  the  supercargo, 
*' but  he  died  long  ago,  did  he  not  ?" 

"Aye,  he  died  here,  and  his  wife 
and  sister  too.  They  all  lie  here  in 
this  old  maraeP 


194 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

And    then    he    told    the    story    of 
Brantley. 


I. 

It  was  six  years  since  Brantley,  with 
his  companions  in  misery,  had  drifted 
ashore  at  lonely  Vahitahi  in  the  Pau- 
motu  Group,  and  the  kindly-hearted 
people  had  gazed  with  pitying  horror 
upon  the  dreadful  beings  that,  mut- 
tering and  gibbering  to  each  other, 
lay  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  and 
pointed  with  long  talon-like  fingers 
to  their  burnt  and  bloody  thirst- 
tortured  lips. 

And  now  as  he  sits  in  the  doorway 
of  his  thatched  house  and  gazes 
dreamily  out  upon  the  long  curve  of 
creamy  beach  and  wind-swayed  line 
of  palms  that  fringe  the  leeward  side 
of  his  island  home,  Brantley  passes 
a  brown  hand  slowly  up  and  down 
his  sun-bronzed  cheek  and  thinks  of 
the  past. 

He  was  so  full  of  life — of  the  very 
joy  of  living — that  time  six  years  ago 
when  he  sailed  from  Auckland  on  that 


195 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

fateful  voyage  in  the  Doris.  It  was 
his  first  voyage  as  captain,  and  the 
ship  w^as  his  own,  and  even  now  he 
remembers  with  a  curious  time-dulled 
pang  the  last  words  of  his  only  sister 
— the  Doris  after  whom  he  had  called 
his  new  ship — as  she  had  kissed  hira 
farewell — "  I  am  so  glad,  Fred,  to 
hear  them  call  you  '  Captain  Brant- 
ley.' " 

And  the  voyage,  the  wild  feverish 
desire  to  make  a  record  passage  to 
'Frisco  and  back  ;  the  earnest  words 
of  poor  old  white-headed  Lutton,  the 
mate,  ''  not  to  carry  on  so  at  night 
going  through  the  Paumotu  Group  ;" 
that  awful  midnight  crash  when  the 
Doris  ran  hopelessly  into  the  wild  boil 
of  roaring  surf  on  Tuanake  Reef;  the 
white,  despairing  faces  of  five  of  his 
men,  who,  with  curses  in  their  eyes 
upon  his  folly,  were  swept  out  of  sight 
into  the  awful  blackness  of  the  night. 
And  then  the  days  in  the  boat  with 
the  six  survivors  !  Ah,  the  memory 
of  that  will  chill  his  blood  to  his  dying 
day.  Men  have  had  to  do  that  which 
he  and  the  two  who  came  through 
alive  with  him  had  done. 

How  long  they  endured  that  black 


196 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 


agony  of  suffering  he  knew  not.  By 
common  consent  none  of  them  ever 
spoke  of  it  again. 

Three  months  after  they  had  drifted 
ashore,  a  passing  sperm  whaler,  cruising 
through  the  group,  took  away  the  two 
seamen,  and  then  Brantley,  after  bid- 
ding them  a  silent  farewell,  had,  with 
bitter  despair  gnawing  at  his  heart, 
turned  his  face  away  from  the  ship 
and  walked  back  into  the  palm-shaded 
village. 

"I  will  never  go  back  again,"  he 
had  said  to  himself.  And  perhaps  he 
was  right  ;  for  when  the  Don's  went 
to  pieces  on  Tuanake  his  hope  and 
fortunes  went  with  her,  and  save  for 
that  other  Doris  there  was  no  one  in 
the  world  who  cared  for  him.  He  was 
not  the  man  to  face  the  world  again 
with  "Why,  he  lost  his  first  ship," 
whispered  among  his  acquaintances. 

And  this  is  how  Brantley,  young, 
handsome,  and  as  smart  a  seaman 
(save  for  that  one  fatal  mistake)  as 
ever  trod  a  deck,  became  Paranili  the 
Papa/agi,  and  was  living  out  his  life 
among  the  people  of  solitary  Vahitahi. 

Ere   a   year   had   passed   a  trading 


IQ7 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

captain  bound  to  the  Gambier  Islands 
had  given  him  a  small  stock  of  trade 
goods,  and  the  thought  of  Doris  had 
been  his  salvation.  Only  for  her  he 
would  have  sunk  to  the  life  of  a  mere 
idle,  gin-drinking,  and  dissolute  beach- 
comber. As  it  was  his  steady,  straight- 
forward life  among  the  people  of  the 
island  was  a  big  factor  to  his  business 
success.  And  so  every  year  he  sent 
money  to  Doris  by  some  passing  whaler 
or  Tahitan  trading  schooner,  but  twice 
only  had  he  got  letters  from  her  ;  and 
each  time  she  had  said,  "Let  me 
come  to  you,  Fred.  We  are  alone  in 
the  world,  and  may  never  meet  again 
else.  Sometimes  I  awake  in  the  night 
with  a  sudden  fear.  Let  me  come  ; 
my  heart  is  breaking  with  the  loneli- 
ness of  my  life  here,  so  far  away  from 
you." 

•  .  •  . 

But  two  years  ago  he  had  done  that 
which  would  keep  Doris  from  ever 
coming  to  him,  he  thought.  He  had 
married  a  young  native  girl — that  is, 
taken  her  to  wife  in  the  Paumotuan 
fashion — and  surely  Doris,  with  her 
old-fashioned  notions  of  right  and 
wrong,  would  grieve  bitterly  if  she 
knew  it. 


198 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

Presently  he  rose,  talking  to  himself 
as  is  the  wont  of  those  who  have  lived 
long  apart  from  all  white  associations, 
and  sauntered  up  and  down  the  shady 
path  at  the  side  of  his  dwelling, 
thinking  of  Doris  and  if  he  would 
ever  see  her  again.  Then  he  entered 
the  house. 

Seated  on  the  matted  floor  with  her 
face  turned  from  him  was  a  young 
native  girl — Luita,  his  wife.  She 
was  making  a  hat  from  the  bleached 
strands  of  the  pandanus  leaf,  and  as  she 
worked  she  sang  softly  to  herself  in  the 
semi-Tahitan  tongue  of  her  people. 

Brantley,  lazily  stretching  himself 
out  on  a  rough  mat-covered  couch, 
turned  towards  her  and  watched  the 
slender,  supple  fingers — covered,  in 
Polynesian  fashion,  with  heavy  gold 
rings — as  they  deftly  drew  out  the 
snow-white  strands  of  the  pandanus. 
The  long,  glossy,  black  waves  of  hair 
that  fell  over  her  bare  back  and  bosom 
like  a  mantle  of  night  hid  her  face 
from  his  view,  and  the  man  let  his 
glance  rest  in  contented  admiration 
upon  the  graceful  curves  of  the  youth- 
ful figure  ;  then  he  sighed  softly,  and 
again  his  eyes  turned  to  the  wide,  sail- 
less  expanse  of  the   Pacific,  that  lay 

199 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

shimmering  and  sparkling  before  him 
under  a  cloudless  sky  of  blue,  and  he 
thought  again  of  Doris. 

Steadily  the  little  hands  worked  in 
and  out  among  the  snowy  strands,  and 
now  and  then,  as  she  came  to  the  tari, 
or  refrain,  of  the  old  Paumotuan  love- 
song,  her  soft  liquid  tones  would  blend 
with  the  quavering  treble  of  children 
that  played  outside. 

"Teriinavahori,  teeth  of  pear], 

Knit  the  sandals  for  Talaloo's  feet, 
Sandals  of  afa  thick  and  strong. 
Bind  them  well  with  thy  long  black  hair." 

Suddenly  the  song  ceased,  and  with 
a  quick  movement  of  her  shoulders 
she  threw  back  the  cloud  of  hair 
that  fell  around  her  arms  and  bosom, 
looked  up  at  Brantley  and  laughed, 
and,  striking  the  mat  on  which  she 
sat  with  her  open  palm,  said — 

"  Art  mat,  Parani/i." 

He  rose  from  the  couch  and  stooped 
beside  her,  with  his  hands  resting  on 
his  knees,  and  bending  his  brow  in 
mock  criticism,  regarded  her  handi- 
work intently. 

Springing  to  her  feet,  hat  in  hand, 
and  placing  her  two  hands  on  his  now 


200 


BY     REEF    AND    PALM. 

erect  shoulders,  she  looked  into  his 
face — darker  far  than  her  own — and 
said  with  a  smile — 

"  Behold,  Paranili,  thy  fulou  is 
finished,  save  tor  a  band  of  black 
pu'avj  which  thou  shalt  give  me  from 
the  store." 

"Mine?"  said  Brantley,  in  pre- 
tended ignorance.  "  Whv  labour  so 
for  me  ?  Are  there  not  hats  in  plenty 
on  \'ahitahi  ? " 

"  True,  O  thankless  one  !  but  the 
women  of  the  village  say  that  thou 
lookest  upon  me  as  a  fool  because  I 
can  neither  make  mats  nor  do  many 
other  things  such  as  becoracth  a  wife. 
And  for  this  did  Merani,  my  cousin, 
teach  me  how  to  make  a  wide  hat  of 
^ala  to  shield  thy  face  from  the  sun 
when  thou  art  out  upon  the  pearling 
grounds.  Ji-e-eh!  my  husband,  but  thy 
tace  and  neck  and  hands  are  as  dark  as 
those  of  the  people  of  Makatea — they 
who  are  for  ever  in  their  canoes.  .  .  . 
See,  Paranili,  bend  thy  head.  Ai-e-eh ! 
thou  art  a  tall  man,  my  husband,"  and 
she  trilled  a  happy,  rippling  laugh  as 
she  placed  the  hat  on  his  head. 

He  placed  one  hand  around  the 
pliant  wais:  and  under  the  mantle  of 
hair  and  drew  her   towards  him,  and 


201 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

then,  moved  by  a  sudden  emotion, 
kissed  her  soft,  red  lips. 

"  Luita,"  he  asked,  "would  it  hurt 
thee  if  I  were  to  go  away  ?  " 

The  girl  drew  away  from  him,  and 
for  the  first  time  in  two  years  Brant- 
ley saw  an  angry  flush  tinge  her  cheek 
a  dusky  red. 

"Ah!" — the  contemptuous  ring  in 
her  voice  made  the  man's  eyes  drop  — 
"  thou  art  like  all  White  Men — was 
there  ever  one  who  was  faithful  ? 
What  other  woman  is  it  that  thou 
desircst  ?  Is  it  Nia  of  Ahunui — she 
who,  when  thy  boat  lay  anchored  in 
the  lagoon,  swam  off  at  night  and 
asked  thee  for  thy  love — the  shame- 
less Nia  !" 

The  angry  light  in  the  black  eyes 
glared  fiercely,  and  the  dull  red  on 
her  cheeks  had  changed  to  the  livid 
paleness  of  passion. 

Brantley,  holding  the  rim  of  the 
hat  over  his  mouth,  laughed  secretly, 
pleased  at  her  first  outburst  of  jealousy. 
Then  his  natural  manliness  asserted 
itself. 

"  Come  here,"  he  said. 

Somewhat  sullenly  the  girl  obeyed 


202 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

and  edged  up  beside  him  with  face 
bent  down.  He  put  his  hand  upon 
hers,  and  for  a  few  seconds  looked  at 
the  delicate  tracery  of  tatooing  that, 
on  the  back,  ran  in  thin  blue  lines 
from  the  finger  tips  to  the  wrists. 

"What  a  d d  pity,"  he  mut- 
tered to  himself  ;  "  this  infernal 
tatooing  would  give  the  poor  devil 
away  anywhere  in  civilization.  Her 
skin  is  not  as  dark  as  that  pretty 
Creole  I  was  so  sweet  on  in  Galveston 
ten  years  ago  .  .  .  well,  she's  good 
enough  for  a  broken  man  like  me ; 
but  I  can't  take  her  away — that's 
certain." 

A  heavy  tear  splashed  on  his  hand, 
and  then  he  pulled  her  to  him,  almost 
savagely. 

"See,  Luita,  I  did  but  ask  to  try 
thee.  Have  no  fear.  Thy  land  is 
mine  for  ever." 

The  girl  looked  up,  and  in  an 
instant  her  face,  wet  with  tears,  was 
laid  against  his  breast. 

Still  caressing  the  dark  head  that 
lay  upon  his  chest,  Brantley  stooped 
and  whispered  something.  The  little 
tatooed  hand  released  its  clasp  of  his 
arm  and  struck  him  a  playful  blow. 

"  And  would  that  bind  thee  more 


203 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

to  me,  and  to  the  ways  of  these  our 
people  of  Vahitahi,''  she  asked,  with 
still  buried  face. 

"Aye,"  answered  the  ex-captain, 
slowly,  "for  I  have  none  but  thee  in 
the  world  to  care  for." 

She  turned  her  face  up.  "  Is  there 
none — not  even  one  woman  in  far-off 
Beretania,  whose  face  comes  to  thee 
in  the  darkness." 

Brantley  shook  his  head  sadly.  Of 
course,  there  was  Doris,  he  thought, 
but  he  had  never  spoken  of  her. 
Sometimes  when  the  longing  to  see 
her  again  would  come  upon  him  he 
would  have  talked  of  her  to  his  native 
wife,  but  he  was  by  nature  an  un- 
communicative man,  and  the  thought 
of  how  Doris  must  feel  her  loneliness 
touched  him  with  remorse  and  made 
him  silent. 

Another  year  passed,  and  matters 
had  gone  well  with  Brantley.  Ten 
months  before  he  had  dropped  on  one 
of  the  best  patches  of  shell  in  the 
Paumotus,  and  to-day,  as  he  sits  writ- 
ing and  smoking  in  the  big  room  of 
his  house,  he  looks  contentedly  out 
through  the  open  door  to  a  little 
white  painted    schooner    that    lay    at 


204 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

anchor  on  the  calm  waters  of  the 
lagoon.  He  had  just  come  back  from 
Tahiti  with  her,  and  the  two  thousand 
dollars  he  had  paid  for  her  was  an 
easy  matter  for  a  man  who  was  now 
making  a  thousand  a  month. 

"What  a  stroke  of  luck,"  he  writes 
to  Doris.  "Had  I  gone  back  to 
Sydney,  where  would  I  be  now  ? — a 
mate,  I  suppose,  on  some  deep-sea 
ship,  earning  ;^I2  or  ^^14  a  month. 
Another  year  or  two  like  this,  and  I 
could  go  back  a  made  man.  Some 
day,  my  dear,  I  may ;  but  I  will 
come  back  here  again.  The  ways 
of  the  people  have  become  my  ways." 

He  laid  down  his  pen  and  came 
to  the  door  and  stood  thinking  awhile 
and  listening  to  the  gentle  rustle  of 
the  palms  as  they  swayed  their  lofty 
plumes  to  the  breezy  trade  wind. 

"Yes,"  he  thought,  "I  would  like 
to  go  and  see  Doris,  but  I  can't  take 
Luita,  and  so  it  cannot  be.  How 
that  girl  suspects  me  even  now. 
When  I  went  to  Tahiti  to  buy  the 
schooner  I  believe  she  thought  she 
would  never  see  me  again.  .  .  .  What 
a  fool  I  am  !  Doris  is  all  right,  I  sup- 
pose, although  it  is  a  year  since  I  had 


205 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

a  letter  .  .  .  and  I — could  any  man 
want  more.  I  don't  believe  there's  a 
soul  on  the  island  but  thinks  as  much 
of  me  as  Luita  herself  does  ;  and  by 
G — d  she's  a  pearl — even  though  she 
is  only  a  native  girl.  No,  I'll  stay 
here:  'Kapeni  Paranili  '  will  alwa3'S 
be  a  big  man  in  the  Paumotus,  but 
Fred  Brantley  would  be  nobody  in 
Sydney — only  a  common  merchant 
skipper  w^ho  had  made  money  in  the 
islands;  .  .  .  and  perhaps  Doris  is 
married." 

So  he  thought  and  talked  to  him- 
self, listening  the  while  to  the  soft 
symphony  of  the  swaying  palm-tops 
and  the  subdued  murmur  of  the  surf 
as  the  rollers  crashed  on  the  distant 
line  of  reef  away  to  leeward.  Of  late 
these  fleeting  visions  of  the  outside 
world — that  quick,  busy  world,  whose 
memories,  save  for  those  of  Doris,  were 
all  but  dead  to  him — had  become  more 
frequent ;  but  the  calm,  placid  happi- 
ness of  his  existence,  and  that  strange, 
fatal  glamour  that  for  ever  enwraps 
the  minds  of  those  who  wander  in 
the  islands  of  the  sunlit  sea — as  the 
old  Spanish  navigators  called  Poly- 
nesia— had  woven  its  spell  too  strongly 


206 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

over  his  nature  to  be  broken.  And 
now,  as  the  murmur  of  women's  voices 
caused  him  to  turn  his  head  to  the 
shady  end  of  the  verandah,  the  dark, 
dreamy  eyes  of  Luita,  who  with  her 
women  attendants  sat  there  playing 
with  her  child,  looked  out  at  him 
from  beneath  their  long  lashes,  and 
told  him  his  captivity  was  complete. 

A  week  afterwards  the  people  of 
Vahitahi  were  clustered  on  the  beach 
putting  supplies  of  native  food  in  the 
schooner's  boat.  That  night  he  was 
to  sail  again  for  the  pearling  grounds 
at  Matahiva  lagoon  and  would  be 
away  three  months. 

One  by  one  the  people  bade  him 
adieu,  and  then  stood  apart  while  he 
said  farewell  to  Luita. 

"  E  mahina  tolu,  little  one,"  he  was 
saying,  "why  such  a  gloomy  face." 

The  girl  shook  her  head,  and  her 
mouth  twitched.  "  But  the  mitiy 
Paranili — the  Wi/zof  my  mother.  She 
is  wise  in  the  things  that  are  hidden ; 
for  she  is  one  of  those  who  believe  in 
the  old  gods  of  Vahitahi.  .  .  .  And 
there  are  many  here  of  the  new  lotu 
who  yet  believe  in  the  old  gods.  And, 
see,  she  has  dreamed  of  this  unknown 


207 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM, 

evil  to  thee  twice ;  and  twice  have 
the  voices  of  those  who  are  silent  in 
the  marae  called  to  me  in  the  night 
and  said,  '  He  must  not  go  ;  he  must 
not  go.'" 

Knowing  well  how  the  old  super- 
stitious taint  ran  riot  in  the  imagina- 
tive native  mind,  Brantley  did  not 
attempt  to  reason,  but  sought  to  gently 
disengage  her  hands  from  his  arm. 

She  dropped  on  the  sand  at  his 
feet  and  clasped  his  knees,  and  a  long, 
wailing  note  of  grief  rang  out. 

'*  Aue !  aue  !  my  husband  ;  if  it  so 
be  that  thou  dost  not  heed  the  voices 
that  call  in  the  night,  then,  out  of 
thy  love  for  me  and  our  child,  let  me 
come  also.  Then,  if  evil  befall  thee, 
let  us  perish  together." 

Brantley  raised  his  hand  and  pointed 
to  the  bowed  and  weeping  figure. 
Some  women  came  and  lifted  her  up. 
Then  taking  the  tender  face  betv/een 
his  rough  hands  he  bent  his  head  to 
hers,  sprang  into  the  boat  and  was  gone. 


II. 

With  ten  tons  of  shell  snugly 
stowed  in  her  hold,  the  little  lamariki 
was  heading   back  for  Vahitahi  after 


208 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

barely  two  months' absence.  Brantley, 
as  he  leant  over  the  rail  and  watched 
the  swirl  and  eddy  of  the  creamy 
phosphorescence  that  hissed  and 
bubbled  under  the  vessel's  stern,  felt 
well  satisfied. 

It  was  the  hour  of  dawn  ;  and  the 
native  at  the  tiller  sang,  as  the  stars 
began  to  pale  before  the  red  flush 
that  tinged  the  sky  to  windward,  a 
low  chant  of  farewell  to  Fetuaho,  the 
star  of  the  morning,  and  then  he  called 
to  Brantley,  who  to  all  his  crew  was 
always  "Paranili"  and  never  "Kapeni," 
and  pointed  with  his  naked  tatooed 
arm  away  to  leeward,  where  the  low 
outlines  of  an  island  began  to  show. 

"Look,  Paranili;  that  is  Tatakoto 
— the  place  I  have  told  thee  of,  where 
the  turtle  make  the  white  beach  to 
look  black.  Would  it  not  be  well  for 
us  to  take  home  some  to  Vahitahi  ?  " 

"  Thou  glutton,"  said  Brantley, 
good-humouredly,  "dost  thou  think 
I  am  like  to  lose  a  day  so  that  thou 
and  thy  friends  may  fill  thy  stomachs 
with  turtle  meat  ?" 

Rue  Manu  laughed  and  showed  his 
white,  even  teeth.  "  Nay,  Paranili, 
not  for  that  alone  ;  but  it  is  a  great 
place,  that  Tatakoto  ;  and   thou  hast 


209 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

never  landed  there  to  look,  and  Luita 
hath  said  that  some  day  she  would 
ask  thee  to  take  her  there  ;  for  though 
she  was  born  at  Vahitahi  her  blood  is 
that  of  the  people  of  Tatakoto,  who 
have  long  since  lain  silent  in  the 
maraes." 

Brantley  had  often  heard  her  speak 
of  it,  this  solitary  spot  in  the  wide 
Pacific,  and  now,  as  he  looked  at  the 
pretty  verdure-clad  island  against  the 
weather  shore  of  which  the  thunder- 
ing rollers  burst  with  a  muffled  roar, 
he  was  surprised  at  its  length  and 
extent,  and  decided  to  pay  it  a  visit 
some  day. 

"Not  now,  Rua,"  he  said  to  the 
steersman,  "but  it  shall  be  soon.  Are 
there  many  cocoanuts  there." 

"Many?  May  I  perish  but  the 
trees  are  as  the  sand  of  the  sea,  and 
the  nuts  lay  thick  upon  the  ground. 
Ai-e-eb  !  and  the  robber  crabs  are  in 
thousands,  and  fat  ;  and  the  sea-birds 

eggs." 

"Glutton  again  !  Be  content.  In 
a  little  while  we  and  as  many  of  the 
people  of  Vahitahi  as  the  schooner 
will  carry  will  go  there  and  stay  for 
the  turtle  season." 


2IO 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

Three  days  afterwards  the  schooner 
was  within  fifty  miles  of  his  island 
home,  when  Brantley  was  aroused  at 
daylight  from  his  watch  below  by  the 
cry  of  '-'■Te  pathi!"  (a  ship  !)  and 
hastening  on  deck  he  saw  a  large 
vessel  bearing  down  upon  them.  In 
half  an  hour  she  was  close  to,  and 
Brantley  recognised  her  as  a  brig 
from  Tahiti,  that  occasionally  made  a 
trading  voyage  to  the  Paumotus,  and 
whose  skipper  was  a  personal  friend. 
Suddenly  she  hove-to  and  lowered  a 
boat,  which  came  alongside  the 
schooner,  and  the  white  man  that 
steered  jumped  on  deck  and  held  out 
his  hand. 

"How  are  you,  Brantley?"  and 
then  his  eye  went  quickly  over  the 
crew  of  the  schooner,  then  glanced 
through  the  open  skylight  into  the 
little  cabin,  and  a  hopeful,  expectant 
look  in  his  face  died  away. 

"  Very  well,  thank  you,  Latham. 
But  what  is  wrong  ? — you  look 
worried." 

"  Come  on  board,"  said  the  captain 
of  the  brig,  quietly,  "  and  I'll  tell  you." 

As  Brantley  took  his  seat  beside 
him  Latham  said,  "I  have  bad  news 
for  you,  Brantley.     Your  sister  is  on 


211 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

board  the  brig,  and  I  fear  she  will 
not  live  long.  She  came  down  to 
Tahiti  in  the  Mara?na  from  Auckland, 
and  offered  me  a  good  round  sura  to 
bring  her  to  you." 

•'Has  she  been  ill  long,  Latham  .^" 

Latham  looked  at  him  curiously. 
"  Didn't  you  know,  Brantley,  She's 
in  a  rapid  consumption." 

For  a  moment  neither  men  spoke  ; 
then  Latham  gave  a  short  cough. 

"  I  feel  it  almost  as  badly  as  you, 
Brantley, — but  I've  got  a  bit  more 
bad  news " 

"  Go  on,  Latham — it  can't  matter 
much;  my  poor  sister  is  everything  to 
me." 

"Just  so.  That's  what  I  told  Miss 
Brantley.     Well,  it's  this — your  wife 

and  child  are  missing "     Latham 

glanced  at  him  and  saw  that  his  hand 
trembled  and  then  clutched  the  gun- 
wale of  the  boat. 

"We  got  into  Vahitahi  lagoon 
about  ten  days  ago,  and  I  took  Miss 
Brantley  ashore.  What  happened  I 
don't  exactly  know,  but  the  next 
night  one  of  your  whaleboats  was 
gone,  and  Luita  and  the  child  were 
missing.     Your  sister  was  in  a  terrible 


212 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

State  of  mind,  and  offered  me  a  thou- 
sand dollars  to  put  to  sea.  Brantley, 
old  man,  I  wouldn't  take  a  dollar  from 
her — God  bless  her — but  I  did  put  to 
sea,  and  I've  searched  nigh  on  twenty 
islands  and  scores  of  reefs  and  sand- 
banks  " 

"  Thank  you,  Latham,"  said  Brant- 
ley, quietly  ;  "  when  we  get  on  board 
you  can  give  me  further  particulars 
of  the  islands  vou've  searched." 

"  You  can  have  my  marked  chart  ; 
I've  got  a  spare  one.  Brace  up,  old 
man  ;  you'll  see  your  sister  in  a 
minute.  She  is  terribly  cut  up  over 
poor  Lutia — more  so  than  I  knew  you 
would.  But  she  was  a  grand  little 
woman,  Brantley,  although  she  was 
only  a  native." 

"  Yes,"  he  answered,  in  the  same 
slow,  dazed  manner,  "  she  was  a  good 

little   girl    to   me,  although  she " 

The  words  stuck  in  his  throat. 

Latham  showed  him  into  the  brig's 
cabin,  and  then  a  door  opened,  and 
Doris  threw  herself  weeping  into  his 
arms. 

"  Oh,  Doris,"  he  whispered,  "  why 
did  you  not  tell  me  you  were  ill  .  .  . 
I  would  have  come  to  you  long  ago. 
I  feel  a  brute " 


213 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

She  placed  her  hands  on  his  lips. 
"  Never  mind  about  me,  Fred.  Has 
Captain  Latham  told  you  about " 

"  Yes,"  he  replied  ;  and  then  sud- 
denly, "  Doris,  I  am  going  to  look  for 
her  ;  I  think  I  know  where  she  tried 
to  reach.  It  is  not  far  from  here. 
Doris,  will  you  go  on  back  to  Vahitahi 
with  Latham  and  wait  for  me  ? '' 

"Fred,"  she  whispered,  "let  me 
come  with  you.  It  will  not  be  long, 
dear,  before  I  am  gone,  and  it  was  hard 
to  die  away  from  you  .  .  .  that  is  why 
I  came  ;  and  perhaps  we  may  find  her." 

He  kissed  her  silently,  and  then  in 
five  minutes  more  they  had  said  fare- 
well to  Latham  and  were  on  their  way 
to  the  schooner. 

The  crew  soon  knew  from  him  what 
had  happened,  and  Rua  Manu,  with 
his  big  eyes  filled  with  a  wondering 
pity  as  he  looked  at  the  frail  body  and 
white  face  of  Doris  lying  on  the  sky- 
light, wore  the  schooner's  head  round 
to  the  south  -west,  at  a  sign  from 
Brantley. 

"Aye,  Paranili,"  he  said,  in  his  deep, 
guttural  tones,  "  it  is  to  Tatakoto  she 
hath  gone — 'tis  her  mother's  land." 


214 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

That  night,  as  she  lay  on  the  sky- 
light with  her  hand  in  his,  Doris  told 
him  all  she  knew  : — 

"  They  were  all  kind  to  me  when 
I  went  ashore  to  your  house,  Fred, 
but  Luita  looked  so  fiercely  at  me. 
.  .  .  Her  eyes  frightened  me — they 
had  a  look  of  death  in  them. 

"  In  the  morning  your  little  child 
was  taken  ill  with  what  they  call 
tataru,  and  I  wanted  to  give  it  medi- 
cine. Luita  pushed  my  hand  away 
and  hugged  the  child  to  her  bosom  ; 
and  then  the  other  women  came  and 
made  signs  for  me  to  go  away.  And 
that  night  she  and  the  child  were 
missing,  and  one  of  your  boats  was 
gone." 

"  Poor  Luita,"  said  Brantley,  strok- 
ing Doris's  pale  cheek,  "she  did  not 
know  you  were  my  sister.  I  never 
told  her,  Doris." 

"She  is  a  very  beautiful  woman, 
Fred.  They  told  me  at  Tahiti  that 
she  was  called  the  pearl  of  Vahitahi  ; 
and  oh!  my  dear,  if  we  can  but  find 
her,  I  will  make  her  love  me  for  your 
sake." 


Late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  second 


215 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

day,  just  as  the  trade  wind  began  to 
lose  its  strength,  the  schooner  was 
running  along  the  weather-side  of 
Tatakoto,  and  Rua  Manu,  from  the 
masthead,  called  out  that  he  saw  the 
boat  lying  on  the  beach  inside  the 
lagoon,  with  her  sail  set  ;  and,  as 
landing  was  not  practical  on  the 
weather-side,  the  schooner  ran  round 
to  the  lee.'' 

"  We  will  soon  know,  Doris.  It 
always  rains  in  these  islands  at  this 
time  of  the  year  ...  so  she  would 
not  suffer  as  I  once  did  ;  but  the  sail 
of  the  boat  is  still  set,  and  that  makes 
me  think  she  has  never  left  it.  Wait 
till  I  come  back  again,  Doris  ;  you 
cannot  help  me." 

And  Doris,  throwing  her  weak  arms 
round  his  neck,  kissed  him  with  a  sob 
and  lay  back  again  to  wait. 


With  Rua  Manu  and  two  others  of 
his  faithful  native  crew  Brantley 
walked  quickly  across  the  island  to 
the  lagoon  to  where  the  boat  lay. 
She  was  not  there,  and  the  dark  eyes 
of  his  sailors  met  his  in  a  responsive 
glow  of  hope — she  had  not  died  in 
the  boat  ! 


216 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

They  turned  back  into  the  silent 
aisles  of  cocoanut  palms,  and  then 
Rua  Manu  called  out  her  name. 

"Listen,''  he  said. 

A  voice — a  weak,  trembling  voice 
— was  singing  the  song  of  Talaloo. 

"Terunavahori,  bending  low, 

Bindeth  the  sandals  on  Talaloo's  feet  j 
'Hasten,  O  hasten,  lover  true, 

O'er  the  coral,  cruel  and  sharp, 
Over  the  coral,  and  sand,  and  rock. 

Snare  thee  a  turtle  for  our  marriage  feast ; 
la  akoe  !  brave  lover  mine.'  " 

"  In  the  old  marae,  Paranili,"  said 
Rua  Manu,  pointing  to  the  ruined 
temple. 

Motioning  to  the  seamen  to  remain 
outside,  Brantley  entered  the  ruined 
walls  of  the  old  heathen  temple.  At 
the  far  end  was  a  little  screen  of 
cocoanut  boughs.  He  stooped  down 
and  went  in. 

A  few  minutes  passed,  and  then  his 
hand  was  thrust  out  between  the 
branches  as  a  sign  for  them  to  follow. 

One  by  one  they  came  and  sat 
beside  Brantley,  who  held  the  wasted 
figure  of  the  wanderer  in  his  arms. 
The  sound  of  his  voice  had  brought 
back    her   wavering   reason,   and   she 


217 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

knew  them  all  now.  She  knew,  too, 
that  her  brief  young  life  was  ebbing 
fast  ;  for,  as  each  of  the  brown  men 
pressed  their  lips  to  her  hand,  tears 
coursed  down  their  cheeks. 

"  See,  men  of  Vahitahi,  my  English- 
man hath  come  to  me,  a  fool  that  fled 
from  his  house  .  .  .  because  I  thought 
that  he  lied  to  me.  Teloma  was  it 
who  first  mocked  and  said,  '  'Tis  his 
wife  from  Beretania  who  hath  come 
to  seek  him  ; '  and  then  other  girls 
laughed  and  mocked  also,  and  said, 
*•  Ah-he !  Luita,  this  fair-faced  girl 
who  sayeth  she  is  thy  husband's  sister, 
Ah-he  /  *  .  .  .  and  their  words  and 
looks  stung  me.  ...  So  at  night  I 
took  my  child  and  swam  to  the  boat. 
.  .  .  My  child,  see,  it  is  here,"  and 
she  touched  a  little  mound  in  the  soil 
beside  her. 

There  was  a  low  murmur  of  sym- 
pathy, and  then  the  brown  men  went 
outside  and  cov^ered  their  faces  with 
their  hands,  after  the  manner  of  their 
race  when  death  is  near,  and  waited 
in  silence. 

Night  had  fallen  on  the  lonely 
island,  and  the  far-off  muffled  boom 
of  the  breakers  as  they  dashed  on  the 


218 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

black  ledges  of  the  weather  reef 
would  now  and  then  be  borne  into 
the  darkness  of  the  little  hut. 

"  Put  thy  face  to  mine,  Paranili,"  she 
whispered  ;  "  I  grow  cold  now." 

As  the  bearded  face  of  the  man 
bent  over  her,  one  thin,  weak  arm 
rore  waveringly  in  the  air  and  then 
fell  softly  round  his  neck,  and  Brant- 
ley, with  his  hand  upon  her  bosom, 
felt  that  her  heart  had  ceased  to  beat. 


The  next  day  he  sailed  the  schooner 
into  the  lagoon,  and  Doris  pressed 
her  lips  on  the  dead  forehead  of  the 
native  girl,  ere  she  was  laid  to  rest. 

Something  that  Doris  had  said  to 
him  as  they  walked  away  from  her 
grave  filled  Brantley's  heart  with  a 
deadly  fear,  and  as  he  took  her  in  his 
arms  his  voice  shook. 

"  Don't  say  that,  Doris.  It  cannot 
be  so  soon  as  that.  I  was  never  a 
good  man  ;  but  surely  God  will  spare 
you  to  me  a  little  longer." 

But  it  came  very  soon — on  the 
morning  of  the  day  that  he  intended 
sailing  out  of  the  lagoon  again.  Doris 
died  in  his  arms  on  board  the 
schooner,   and   Br-antley   laid  her    to 


219 


BY    REEF    AND    PALM. 

rest  under  the  shade  of  a  giant  puka- 
tree  that  overshadowed  the  stones  of 
the  old  marae. 

That  night  he  called  Rua  Manu 
into  the  cabin  and  asked  him  if  he 
could  beat  his  way  back  to  Vahitahi 
in  the  schooner. 

" 'Tis  an  easy  matter,  Paranili.  So 
that  the  sky  be  clear  and  I  can  see 
the  stars,  then  shall  I  find  Vahitahi 
in  three  days." 

"  Good.  Then  to-morrow  take  the 
schooner  there,  and  tell  such  of  the 
people  as  desire  to  be  with  me  to 
come  here,  and  bring  with  them  all 
things  that  are  in  my  house.  It  is 
my  mind  to  live  here  at  Tatakoto." 

As  the  schooner  slipped  through 
the  narrow  passage,  he  stood  on  the 
low,  sandy  point  and  waved  his  hand 
in  farewell. 

A  week  later  the  little  vessel 
dropped  her  anchor  in  the  lagoon 
again,  and  Rua  Manu  and  his  crew 
came  ashore  to  seek  him. 

They  found  him  lying  under  the 
shade  of  the  puka  tree  with  his 
revolver  in  his  hand  and  a  bullet- 
hole  in  his  temple. 


220 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last 
date  stamped  helow 


211 


Fib  2  '59 


DEC  3  0  1960 


3w)-2,'45(3232) 


nrtrc    T  Tni>  ATJV 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA  000  380  489  5 


PR 

4095 

B38b 


'.ilcCWA't. 


